“The New Colonialism of the Sexual Revolution:
An Authentic Catholic Response.”
NATIONAL YOUTH CONFERENCE, 2019
HOST DIOCESE: KASANA- LUWEERO, UGANDA
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
Founder and President
The Ruth Institute
December 2019
Revised for publication
Introduction
Thank you for the kind invitation to address the 2019 National Youth Conference here in the Diocese of Kasana- Luweero. My son and I are honored to be
here. I am the President of The Ruth Institute. We are building an international, interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization
of love. I speak for the Ruth Institute Board of Directors, staff, benefactors, and followers around the world, that we are honored to be part of this
great gathering of Ugandan young people. We are pleased to welcome you to the Ruth Institute’s international, interfaith coalition to defend the family.
I am delighted to be able to learn more about Uganda, as I only know a few things about your country. I am aware of the Ugandan Martyrs. In union with
the worldwide Catholic Church, I observe the liturgical feast of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions every year on June 3.
I also know that Uganda had a successful strategy for combating the spread of HIV-AIDS in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Your country did not blindly follow the
lead of the international agencies that were promoting condoms as the one and only solution to the spread of the HIV virus. You developed your own
program encouraging people to reduce the number of sexual partners they had. [1] And you
continue to take a wholistic approach, seeing the person in his social and spiritual context.
My topic today is the Sexual Revolution. The Sexual Revolution is not native to Africa. Wealthy and powerful people have spent vast sums of their own money
to promote the Sexual Revolution. These same people have captured the use of governments and international agencies to impose this ideology around
the world. This is a new form of colonialism. We could call it sexual colonialism or ideological imperialism, to distinguish it from economic colonialism
or imperialism.
I want you to know that many, many Americans share your pro-life and pro-family values. Many Americans have come to realize that
the Sexual Revolution is a totalitarian ideology. Those same Americans are deeply ashamed when they realize how our government has historically thrust
the values of the Sexual Revolution on people around the world, including you here in Uganda. I am not talking only about American Catholics. Also,
Eastern Orthodox Christians, Evangelical Protestants, Latter Day Saints, and observant Jews in America, share your family values. On behalf of those
Americans, I apologize for our country’s role in spreading the Sexual Revolution to your country.
Another thing that I sometimes hear about Uganda are confused and vague reports that Uganda has the death penalty for homosexuality. Or is considering
the death penalty for homosexuality.[2] Or that American Christians are somehow to blame.
[3]
So, I wish to say something to this all-Catholic gathering.
As Catholics, we stand by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the death penalty, as on all other serious matters. Pope St. John Paul II revised the
Catechism to say: “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, … recourse to the death penalty. … Today, given the means
at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the
possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for [the death penalty]… ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’”[4] We cannot support the death penalty for homosexuality. We don’t need to belabor the point.
My purpose here today is to convince you that you should exercise all morally acceptable means for keeping the toxic ideology of the Sexual Revolution
out of your country.
The Structure of the Sexual Revolution
Let me first define the Sexual Revolution. It has three main ideas. The first is that a good and decent society should separate sex from babies. I call
this the Contraceptive Ideology. The underlying idea is that everyone is entitled to unlimited sexual activity, without a
live baby ever resulting. Abortion is the back-up plan for an unwanted child.
This is why contraception does not prevent or reduce abortion. I gather the evidence to support this in my book, The Sexual State.
[5]
More people have sex in situations where they would not want to become parents. When their contraception fails, they become afraid of the responsibility
of parenthood. They abort the child.
The second idea of the Sexual Revolution is that a good society should separate both sex and babies from marriage. The underlying idea is that children
do not really need to have a relationship with both of their parents. A person doesn’t have to be married to have sex or to have babies.
The most extreme form of this idea is third-party reproduction where a person can have a child without ever having any relationship at all with the child’s
other parent. People can purchase sperm or eggs or pay for the use of a surrogate mother. This creates the illusion that the baby does not actually
have two parents. I call all of this, the Divorce Ideology.
The third ideology is the Gender Ideology, which Pope Francis has condemned so eloquently and frequently. Your Bishop Paul Ssemogerere
mentioned this ideology in his talk yesterday as well. The earliest version of this ideology called itself “feminism.”According to this ideology, any
differences we observe between men and women are socially constructed, and evidence of injustice. The law and culture must eliminate all these differences.
Today, the Gender Ideology has expanded to include the social acceptance of homosexual acts, suggesting that sex of your
sex partner is unimportant. Whether a person prefers to have sex with a person of their own sex or of the opposite sex does not matter. The Gender
Ideology has now gone even further to include what is called “transgenderism.”The sex of the body can be overwritten by technology and social engineering.
The sex of the body is insubstantial and can be changed at will.
All these ideas are foreign to your country. They were foreign to our country too, until very recently. I could tell you many important things about these
topics. But I cannot tell you everything you need to know in a mere half hour. However, you can spend a half hour with me every day. You can follow
the Ruth Institute on Facebook. Subscribe to our You-Tube channel.Above all, sign up for our weekly newsletter.[6] My son is circulating a sheet where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. Just give us your email address, and we will send you something to read,
and to watch or listen to, every single week.
Today, I want to focus only on two things.
- 1.The Sexual Revolution is beyond “left” and “right.” The Sexual Revolution is an ideology, all on its own. It has many things in common with Marxism
and fascism. But it has its own identity. This is one of the features that has made it so difficult to combat. People cannot see it for what it
is. They do not know what to call it. - 2.You must not use the terminology of the Sexual Revolutionaries. They have invested millions, by now, perhaps billions, of dollars to create certain associations of ideas and words. If you use their terminology, you will place yourself at a disadvantage.
Beyond Left and Right
The modern ideologies include Marxism, fascism and now, the Sexual Revolution. These ideologies all have a few points in common.
They have a Utopian vision of Heaven on Earth. The ideologies differ about what this new Heaven will look like. The Marxists dream of a classless society
without private property. The fascists dream of a world united around the Nation or the Race. The Sexual Revolutionaries dream of a world of unlimited
sexual activity, that is child-free, guilt-free and problem-free.
But do not be misled by the differences in the final vision. Despite wildly different visions of the Good Society, all the modern ideologies have a similar
structure. They all agree that the new Heaven on Earth will come about by the efforts of a Savior Class. That is, as long as that Savior Class possesses
enough power to change the world, including changing human nature. The beauty of the dream, justifies anything and everything the Savior Class chooses
to do, including lying and violence, twisting the law and all the propaganda money can buy.
The next point all the modern ideologies have in common is that their utopian dream world is impossible. But this does not dissuade the true believer.
Doing the impossible just requires a lot of power. Overcoming the natural law requires constant propaganda. For people who desire power over others
and over society, an irrational, but appealing dream serves their purposes very well.
And the Sexual Revolution is irrational and impossible. Recall the 3 interlocking ideologies I mentioned at the beginning. The
Gender Ideology says that the sex of the body is unimportant. We can reconstruct male and female as we wish. This is untrue.
Men and women are different, and the body is significant.
The Divorce Ideology says that marriage is unimportant for children, because children do not really need permanent attachments
to their own parents. This is false. Children do need their own parents.
And the Contraceptive Ideology says that we can separate sex from babies. Everyone is entitled to behave as if sex does not make
babies. Completely untrue.
Please notice how Christianity contrasts with these fantasy ideologies. The Catholic Church does not need a “Savior Class” of people with unlimited earthly
power. We know that only Jesus can save us. In fact, Jesus can save us in the midst of any political system imaginable. Even when the Church has been
weak in worldly terms, Jesus still saves people.
The modern ideologies are tools for the accumulation of power. The Church does not need power. And more than that: the Church teaches that people with
power and money and influence are not entitled to do whatever they can get away with. The Church told the Emperor Nero that he was not God. St. John
Chrysostom scolded the empress for her vanity. The Church today tells Hollywood and Wall Street and Planned Parenthood and the United Nations that
they are not allowed to do whatever they want.
This is, in the end, the teaching that gets us in trouble! We are always at odds with the powerful. So be it. Today’s powerful people want unlimited sex
and have devised a clever ideology to justify this desire. We must oppose them because they are wrong.
Do not Use the Terminology of the Sexual Revolution
The second point I want to leave you with is that you must not use the terminology of the Sexual Revolutionaries. They have invested millions, by now,
perhaps billions, of dollars to craft a manner of speaking that places their ideas in the most favorable light. The terms they have created have ideological
assumptions built into them.If you use their terminology, you will place yourself at a disadvantage.
I have already mentioned the term “feminist.” This word carries many positive associations. “Feminism” means “freedom” and “equality” and “education for
girls,” and “women get to have good jobs.”
But “feminism” has other ideas associated with it. “Feminism” means “women don’t really need men,” and “women are too good to waste by staying home and
caring for children,” and “children hold women back.” With these associations, “feminism” comes to mean abortion and contraception.
This word has assumptions built into it. The interest of men and the interests of women are necessarily distinct from and in conflict with each other.
The word “feminism” also assumes that “feminists” and only “feminists” have the right to speak for all women.
That is why I avoid using the word “feminism.”
Another important term to avoid is the word “gay.” I strongly recommend that you not use the word “gay,” or even “homosexual.” I especially urge you to
avoid these words as free-standing nouns, as in “He is a homosexual,” or “I’m gay.”
Speaking in this way has ideology baked into it. It suggests that the person is defined by his sexual desires and behaviors. The term suggests that those
desires and behaviors are permanent and can never change.
These associations with the word “gay” come from the United States. So let me tell you the back-story.
As you perhaps know, the United States has the terrible history of importing people from Africa to be used as slaves. The trans-Atlantic slave trade persisted
for two hundred years. We have spent the past 150 years trying to deal with its aftermath. All of this troubled history has left us with many problems
of racial discrimination and prejudice. We have tried to solve these problems with laws forbidding discrimination.
The basic idea of anti-discrimination law is simple enough. People who are the same should be treated the same. People who behave differently, can of course, be treated differently. For instance, employers must treat people who are equally qualified for a job, in the same way.
By now, America has a well-developed body of law defining permissible and impermissible differences in how people are treated in employment, housing, education,
and so on. Unlawful discrimination is treating people differently on the basis of in-born characteristics over which the individual has no control.
People cannot be treated differently on the basis of what the law calls “immutable traits.”
The Sexual Revolutionaries seized upon this distinction in American law. They wished to gain legal protection for homosexual acts. Their strategy was to
create the impression that “being gay” is comparable to “being black.” If they could succeed in making this comparison, then the whole body of anti-discrimination
law could be used to protect homosexual acts.
Let me pause to assure you that American blacks deeply resent the way that the Sexual Revolutionaries have used this comparison between race and homosexual
acts. Many American blacks are serious Christians who oppose homosexual acts. They are deeply offended by what they consider the hi-jacking of the
civil rights movement for defending a set of behaviors and political commitments.
Despite the protests of American blacks, sexual radicals have made a strong effort to create the belief that people are “born gay.” They say, no one chooses
to be gay. Being gay is something a person cannot change, they say. It is an “immutable trait.” The Sexual Revolutionary Elites have spent an enormous
amount of money and effort to create the impression that these points are true. But none of them actually are true.
We now know that there is no “gay gene.” People may experience same sex attraction as a deep part of their personality. They may not remember ever feeling
differently. But no one is “born gay.” The scientific and psychological professions must now admit, (somewhat reluctantly.)
There is no gay gene.[7]
There is no scientifically established meaning of the word “gay.” [8]
There is no scientific consensus on how and why some people develop same sex attraction and others do not.[9]
Sexual orientation is fluid in many people, meaning that it can change.[10]
In short, “being gay” is nothing like “being black.”
My advice that you avoid the term “gay” is more than just a rhetorical strategy. It is also part of Church teaching. Homosexual desires do not define a
person’s identity. This is why the Church uses the phrase “men with deep-seated homosexual attractions.”[11]
So, instead of saying “gay,” use a phrase that more accurately describes what you are actually talking about.
Instead of “gay” say perhaps, “same sex attracted,” if you mean someone who experiences these feelings.
Instead of “gay,” say perhaps, “men who have sex with men.” This is what medical researchers say, for instance, when they are studying the spread of disease.
Instead of “gay” say perhaps “self-identified homosexual” if you mean someone who does in fact identify themselves with their patterns of attraction.
And if any of you, dear young people, find yourself feeling same-sex attraction, do not label yourself as “gay.”Seek help and counseling. But do not let
anyone call you “gay,” or draw you into what they call the “LGBT community.” Be assured that with prayer and counseling, those feelings can diminish,
and you can live a normal life as a husband and father or as a wife and mother. These feelings do not define who you are. That is conclusion that my
friend Daniel Mattson came to, and why he wrote this book called “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay.” [12]
That is conclusion my young friend Hudson Byblow came to. He was not very athletic. He was slightly built. The other boys teased him. He was confused about
himself. He doubted his manhood. Then, an older man molested him. So Hudson thought to himself, “I must be gay.” It took him a long time to overcome
the problems he created for himself by adopting that label and the behaviors that went along with it. But now, as he says, he is doing “something more
beautiful.” He has moved from “LGBT to Jesus Christ.” [13]
Conclusion: New Colonialism, New Slavery
As I said at the beginning, the Sexual Revolutionary ideology is not native to Uganda. It is actually a new form of colonialism. The old economic colonialism
attempted to dominate the physical resources of the African continent. The new ideological imperialism attempts to dominate the soul of Africa.
But I will tell you a secret. The Sexual Revolution is an intellectual house of cards. It is fragile because it is untrue. It opposes the law of nature
and nature’s God. Therefore, the Sexual Revolution needs to be propped up, coddled, protected. The Sexual Revolution needs conformity. Evidence that
contradicts it, is a direct threat. People who dissent are a direct threat. Every chaste teenager is a threat. Every person and institution of faith
is a threat.
And you are a threat. The ideologues fear your vitality and your fertility and your faith. The new Western colonialists do not want to extract resources
or material wealth from you. They want your conformity. They want your hearts and minds.
Yesterday, you heard Bishop Paul Ssemogerere say that the Christian soul can always be young, no matter how old the person’s body may be. The Christian
soul is filled with joy. You all nodded in agreement with him when he said this.
I want you to know that the West is old and tired. They are tired of themselves and their ideologies. They would not say this of course. But I believe
they are tired because they have tried to live as if God does not exist. They are tired of this life they have created for themselves.
Chattel slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade was the old form of Western exploitation of Africa. Today, Western influence has the potential to create
an even more serious form of slavery. Jesus told us to have no fear of those who could kill the body. Rather, we should fear those who can kill the
soul. And St. Paul warned us long ago about the enslaving power of sin. In Galatians 5, St. Paul told us, “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand
firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” [14]
That is why we must continue to be inspired by the Ugandan Martyrs. These martyrs died for their faith at the hands of the king. Sometimes when their story
is recounted, the homosexual element is omitted from the story.As all of you know, the king was a sexual predator who preyed upon young men. The king
believed he was entitled to do whatever he wanted, and that everyone was required to submit to his desires. Charles Lwanga and his companions refused
the king’s sexual advances. The king was enraged and ordered their execution.[15]
When Western aid agencies come around here pestering you to adopt their ways, tell them you reject sexual colonialism. Do not accept the lies of ideological
imperialism. Remember the Ugandan Martyrs! The Truth really will set you free.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Helen Epstein, The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS, (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-lgbt-rights/uganda-denies-plans-to-impose-death-penalty-for-gay-sex-amid-global-concern-idUSKBN1WT23I
[3] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/uganda-murder-gay-chick-fil-a/
[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2267 Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. The entire paragraph
2267 reads, 2267 “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the
offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
“If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself
to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human
person.
“Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without
depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very
rare, if not practically non-existent.”
[5] The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies are Destroying Lives, and How the Church was Right all Along,
Jennifer Roback Morse (Charlotte, NC: TAN Publishing, 2017)
[6] For Ruth Institute resources, see http://www.ruthinstitute.org/
[7] “Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior,” Andrea
Ganna et.al. Science 365, eaat7693 (2019) 30 August 2019 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/eaat7693For
a laymen’s explanation of this study and its significance, see Paul Sullins: “The gay gene myth has been exploded.” https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/the-gay-gene-myth-has-been-exploded/22824
[8] Dr. Lisa Diamond, “New Paradigms for Research on Heterosexual and Sexual- Minority Development,”
Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 2003, Vol. 32. No. 4, 490-498, at 492. See also the references quoted in Paul
McHugh and Lawrence Mayer, “The New Atlantis, special report on Sexuality and Gender,” Fall 2016. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20160819_TNA50SexualityandGender.pdf
[9] American Psychological Association, “Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality,” (n.d.), accessed January
19, 2018, http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx , in response to the question
“What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?”
[10] This topic has been extensively studied. For representative articles, see, Zhana Vrangalova, “Mostly
Heterosexual and Mostly Gay/Lesbian: Evidence for New Sexual Orientation Identities,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 41, no. 1 (February 2012), pp. 85–101,
and Lisa Diamond, “Female Bisexuality From Adolescence to Adulthood: Results From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study,” Developmental Psychology 44,
no. 1 (2008), pp. 5–14, https://psych.utah.edu/_documents/people/diamond/diamond-female-bisexuality-adolescence-to-adulthood.pdf For book-length treatments about female sexuality see Lisa Diamond, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Likewise, Ritch Savin-Williams has written extensively about sexual fluidity among men. His book-length treatment
is Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity among Men (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).
[11]“Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with
Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders,” 2005.
[12] Daniel Mattson, “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay,” (San Francisco, Ignatius Press)
[13] Hudson Byblow, “In Pursuit of My identity,” https://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/in-pursuit-of-my-identity-homosexuality-transgenderism-and-my-life
[14] Gal 5:1. Other relevant passages include Romans 6:6 and 7:14-23
[15] African Holocaust: The Story of the Ugandan Martyrs, (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa,
2007). On June 3, the country of Uganda celebrates, “Martyrs Day.” Highlights of the 2019 celebration can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdeN2kHijpY
