by Jennifer Roback Morse
This article was first posted at Crisis Magazine on September 11, 2018.
Miami police arrested two priests for “lewd and lascivious behavior.” One of them was also charged with “indecent exposure.”
The two priests were in a parked car in a public place, performing a “sex act.” As the policeman noted, “there were no tints on the windows.” Let’s talk about these two men, and what this incident means for our (non-stop) public conversation about
sex.
First off, let me state for the record: I will never say “all gay men are….” I once wrote an article called “Fifty Shades of Gay.” I’m not about to draw rash conclusions about “gay men” from the behavior of a few.
However, this incident certainly casts doubt on what I will call the Grand Gay Narrative. The Gay Marketing Men and their allies who promote the Sexual
Revolution have gone to a lot of trouble to create the following impressions in the public mind:
- Being gay is a normal variation of healthy human sexuality. “Straight” vs. “gay” is no more significant than left-handed vs. right-handed.
- Gay people are “born that way.”
- Any problems that gay people might have are the result of “homophobia,” that is, unjust discrimination against them by society, or “internalized homophobia,”
that is, self-hatred.
The incident of two priests having oral sex in public undermines the plausibility of the Grand Gay Narrative. Let us consider these points one by one:
- The police report states that the two men were performing sex acts on each other “in full view of the public passing by on Ocean Drive and the sidewalk.”
Performing oral sex in a car, parked in a public place, is not a “normal variation of healthy human sexuality.” - Nobody is born with an uncontrollable urge to have sex in a public place.
- We cannot dismiss this behavior as the result of “homophobia,” internalized or otherwise. I mean, honestly, Miami is not exactly a hotbed of Puritanism.
These two men could have easily found a private place for their activities while they visited Miami. These two guys from the Archdiocese of Chicago
gave the same address. In other words, they lived together. How many more opportunities for sex in a private place would it take to keep them from
“lewd and lascivious” behavior and “indecent exposure” in public?
The most logical conclusion is that these two men are not in command of themselves. They are either grossly immature or they have some kind of obsessive-compulsive
“issues,” as the euphemism goes. In other words, this is not normal behavior—at all.
One might reply that these two men are not typical of gay men, and that their behavior is not an intrinsic part of being gay. OK. Let’s say these two guys
are not necessarily typical. They are atypical, out-of-control whack jobs.
In fact, I will go one step further: I won’t refer to them as “gay” at all. If you notice, I have not yet referred to them as “gay.” I plan not to do so.
Perhaps you did not know that distinguished psychologist and expert on gender, Dr. Lisa Diamond, has stated:
“There is currently no scientific or popular consensus on the exact constellation of experiences that definitively ‘qualify’ a person as lesbian, gay
or bisexual, rather than curious, confused or maladjusted.”
Instead of the scientifically ambiguous and contested term “gay,” let me use a more precise term. The community of public health and medical researchers
generally use the term, “men who have sex with men,” or MSM. Is the behavior of 39-year-old Fr. Diego Berrio and 30-year-old Fr. Edwin Giraldo Cortez
in any way typical of other men who have sex with men? Looking at the Centers for Disease Control’s reports on rates of sexually transmitted diseases
gives us some insight into this question.
Syphilis: the CDC reports that “MSM continued to account for the majority of Primary & Secondary
syphilis cases in 2016 (Figures 35 and 36). Of 27,814 reported P&S syphilis cases in 2016, 16,155 (58.1 percent) were among MSM, including 14,553
(52.3 percent) cases among men who had sex with men only and 1,602 (5.8 percent) cases among men who had sex with both men and women (Figure 36).”
HIV: This CDC report states:
- In 2014, gay and bisexual men made up an estimated 2 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 70 percent of new HIV infections.
- Most gay and bisexual men get HIV through having anal sex without condoms or medicines to prevent or treat HIV. Anal sex is the riskiest type
of sex for getting or transmitting HIV.
Sexually transmitted diseases are the result of a combination of having sex with multiple partners, and not using condoms consistently. Some might argue
that lots of people have the urge to have multiple sex partners. In that sense, we could say they are all “born that way.” But we expect people to
control that urge. And most people successfully do.
What can we conclude from the much higher rates of STDs among men who have sex with men compared with everyone else? We can, I think, reasonably conclude
that MSM are less likely to be in command of themselves than others, more likely to have multiple partners, and less likely to take steps that reduce
risk.
These two particular men are certainly not in command of themselves. Do you really want Fr. Diego Berrio or Fr. Edwin Giraldo Cortez running the youth
group at your parish, or deciding whether your marriage is null? Is there really a safe or appropriate placement for someone who can’t control himself?
Whatever your answer to those questions might be, I think we can agree on one thing: this incident seriously tarnishes the carefully crafted image created
by the Gay Marketing Men.
