In today’s so-called tolerant society, a majority of the younger generation, a growing number of religions, and at least half of self-described Christians equate “love” with “nonjudgmental kindness.” When Jesus commanded us, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), the current culture’s belief is that translates to mean affirm others in their beliefs, be tolerant – or better yet a supporter – of their actions, and certainly never admonish them for their acts, no matter how debased. All those who believe this are in error.
The mistake here is thinking that the only aspect of “love” is when one kindly accepts another. Whereas love can at times be displayed by this form of unconditional kindness, there are also times love can be demonstrated with contrasting actions, such as in the form of admonishment, rebuke, correction, or counsel. You show true love – which can sometimes be referred to as “tough love” – when a person has made a poor choice or is heading in a misguided direction, and you speak out and insist that the person needs to change his/her ways lest he/she will get too deep into sin, possibly endangering his/her eternal soul.
For example, if mom and dad truly love their teenage daughter, they would punish her if she steals alcohol from the liquor cabinet. If they truly love their son, if he looks at pornography they would harshly criticize him and explain the reasons why porn is immoral. None of these acts mom and dad do would be considered loving acts generated out of “kindness,” yet they are still considered acts of love, as they are generated out of “concern.” Love contains many attributes and these include acts of admonishing, rebuking, correcting, and counseling.
“Admonishing the sinner” is a spiritual work of mercy, and you can only practice it when you judge another’s action as being disobedient to God and let that person know the error of his/her act. Jesus told us that if we love Him we will perform spiritual and corporal works of mercy. He instructed His disciples, “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3). If we strive to imitate Christ, we must do the same with admonishing those who sin, albeit always in a non-hypocritical and civil manner.
The secular culture greatly influences teenagers and young adults, and the culture’s worldview is in direct conflict with authentic Catholic parents who uphold God’s standards – most notably in regard to asserting same-sex marriages are not legitimate and the only acceptable form of sexual relations is between a married husband and wife. Society calls these parents bigoted, intolerant, and so-called homophobic, with their youngsters hearing these negative pokes every single day on TV, from the celebrities they follow, on social media channels, from their friends, and even from their teachers. More likely than not your children are tempted to put on – if not already wearing – the uniform of your opposition – the secular culture.
Battling their youngsters’ beliefs in the areas of sexual mores has become a confounding problem many parents find themselves in these days. If you are the Catholic parent of a Generation X, Y, or Z child who is growing up as a faithful Catholic as well, it should be possible to fight through the naughty noise your kids are hearing elsewhere by using faith-based arguments to remind your sons and daughters why it is good and necessary to be counter-cultural when it comes to sticking to the truths regarding homosexual relations and so-called gay marriage.
Parents can remind their children of God’s “tough love” for us when He said to Moses:
“Say to the people of Israel, I am the Lord your God. …You shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, and defile yourself with her. …You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:2,20,22).
Christ also spoke the truth about various sexual sins, such as when he told an adulteress to “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11), and said about divorce:
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12).
Jesus reiterated that His Father purposely created us as two unique sexes whom are to marry and reproduce:
“Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female? For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one” (Matthew 19:4-5).
And in the New Testament, Saint Paul, said:
“Neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10).
Despite the Biblical and traditional evidence, there are still self-identified Christian teenagers and young adults who have been so spellbound by the corrupt culture that they propose “their” Jesus would join them is agreeing, “Love is love!” If the young people in your life try to rationalize their gay pride revelry to you by arrogantly insisting, “It’s fine to live a gay/lesbian/queer lifestyle because Jesus loves us just the way we are,” you should respond, “Yes, Jesus loves sexually disordered people, but He loves them so much that He wants to push them to strive to be perfect. Jesus’s own words to us were, ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48).”
Remind your kids that Jesus never told sinners in any of the four Gospel accounts, “I love you just the way you are.” However, He did repeatedly say in all the Gospels, “Go and sin no more.” Hopefully, parents of practicing-Catholic children will be able to break the spell society has on their kids by using this argument and the other above examples.
But what can parents of non-believing or religiously-indifferent children say to their secular teenagers and young adult kids who have succumbed to believing the propaganda that if you really love someone you will affirm their sexual difference, and anyone who does not support so-called gay pride should be at least shunned if not punished.
More than any other time, there have never been as many young people who are religious “nones” – meaning they are atheists, agnostics, or that their religion is “nothing in particular.” Since they are not steadfast in their faith, succumbing to believing “love is love” and not taking heed of God’s words are unfortunately very logical in their minds.
The “nones” follow the principle of moral relativism, which is the philosophical view that there are no absolutes or objective moral truths, and that morality is subjective and identified by how something makes us feel. Moral relativists constantly argue, “There is no absolute truths; there is your truth and my truth.” It becomes very difficult to engage in a rational dialogue with people who have adopted this worldview that has poisoned the minds of so many young people in the 21st century. In order to engage in any discussion about the truth of sexuality with a “none,” the obstacle of moral relativism must be overcome.
Parents have to try their best to explain to their misguided children the error and danger of relativism and that if society doesn’t clearly define right and wrong, we head down a slippery slope that eventually leads to the decay of civilization. If everything is permissible because there is no absolute rights or wrong, then nothing can be labeled as “wrong.” If that is the case, we can’t label anyone a “humanitarian” just as much as we can’t label anyone a “sociopath.” If anything people do is okay and no one has the right to say differently, then we have no grounds within this framework of moral relativism to punish a man for raping a woman or criticizing a man for keeping someone as a slave if he says what he did made him feel good and was harmless according to “his truth.”
Moreover, you can point out the contradiction that if the principle they follow states there are no absolutes, that in itself is an absolute. How does that work? Simply ask, “Is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth?” If your child answers yes, then it proves relativism is false. If your son or daughter insists we should not force our morality on other people, since others might have their own moral truth that is different from ours, point out this contradictoriness since it says we should not impose our morality, which in itself becomes an absolute moral truth. How can there be no absolute moral truths but there is this one absolute moral truth?
Let’s assume you can refute the argument for moral relativism good enough that your youngster reluctantly agrees there should be some moral standards. Now, how can you get your son or daughter to come to common sense about why certain sexual practices or beliefs are immoral? It doesn’t matter if your child is engaging in homosexual activity himself/herself or is merely flying rainbow flags as a show of support. To whatever degree your child may be entrenched in the secular culture’s mores, your job as the parent putting out tough love and showing a love-via-concern rather than a love-via-kindness is to speak up and maintain there are moral truths and absolute rights and wrongs.
For your children who believe that showing love toward active homosexual couples means to at least accept their behavior and at most publicly endorse it, you must destroy in your kids’ minds their belief in the “love is love” propaganda line by awakening their minds and souls. In order to awaken them, you will need to be blunt and explicit.
(Warning: The following paragraph is going to be crass and rough.)
To fight through the Hollywood myths your children have been indoctrinated with that present same-sex relationships as nothing but two men holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, your kids need to hear the unhealthy, vulgar reality of male homosexual acts. Explain to your teenage or older child that “love is love” actually includes agreeing that a man inserting his penis in another man’s anus is good and proper. Give a biology lesson where you point out that males were never intended to have sex with other males, and that is obvious by the way the reproductive system is built and functions, with only the man-in-woman sexual act designed to produce a baby. The digestive system is likewise built and functions a specific way, with items only supposed to leave the anal canal, not enter it. The vagina was designed with natural lubricants and specific muscles so to be able to be safely penetrated by a penis; the rectum was designed as an “exit only” passage so to defecate feces. The man-in-man sexual act is a violation of not just Biblical law but natural law.
To further explain to the “love is love” believer how unhealthy same-sex relations are, share these facts that homosexual men are at a higher risk of anal cancer and infection with HIV, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections, have increased risk of depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety, are more likely than heterosexual men to have body image problems and eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, are more likely to become alcoholics, and experience partner violence at a higher rate than do other men.
As for women in homosexual relationships, the facts are they are at a much bigger risk for sexually transmitted diseases and pelvic inflammatory diseases than heterosexual women, have higher rates of psychiatric illnesses, including depression, drug abuse, and suicide attempts, are more likely to acquire bacterial vaginosis, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C, and compared to heterosexual women smoke more, abuse alcohol more, and shoot more intravenous drugs. Finally, both men and women homosexuals have shorter relationships (i.e., they break up more often) and many more sexual partners in their lifetimes when compared to heterosexual relationships.
Children who buy into the so-called LGBTQIA2S+ belief system are only hearing from the echo chamber of liberal news media, immoral Hollywood, corrupted social media, and uneducated friends on how sweet and special so-called gay marriage and gay sex are. They need to hear from conservative, moral, wholesome, educated mom and dad, too!
If you want to love someone who is struggling with homosexual attraction, you help them find psychological and spiritual help and you explain the facts. Love tells the truth by pointing out right from wrong and reality from delusion. If we allow our kids to make up “their truths,” we really aren’t loving.
It is an uphill battle to fight against society’s propaganda and lies because not enough Catholic clergy or lay people in recent generations stood firm and spoke up about the truth of sexual disorders. Thus through either commission or omission, weak or scared Catholics have neglected to care about others’ souls and minds, and in the case of our younger generation, are at best allowing them or at worst teaching them to go along with the sexual sins today’s culture is promoting. Faithful Catholics must speak out – to their children and to faux Christians – about homosexual relations being harmful and sinful and about marriage designed from the beginning to only be between a man and a woman.
Our youth and young adults who believe the “love is love” mantra and therefore believe there is nothing wrong with homosexual acts are separating themselves from God. Our children joining in the so-called gay pride movement is equivalent to our children arrogantly thinking more of themselves and less of God because they are basically calling God a liar. They have embraced a false version of reality by promoting the idea that God was wrong in insisting intimate relations with members of the same-sex were not natural and good. How heartbreaking for a faithful Christian mom and dad to hear their kid basically implying, “To hell with God!”
At the same time you are explaining why man & man sex and woman & woman sex are wrong, your kids need to hear as well that for heterosexuals only a married husband and wife are to have sex. So just as those inclined to desire sexual relations with a member of the same sex must refrain, even thought it “constitutes for most of them a trial” (Catechism #2358), so too do those inclined to desire sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex need to refrain, unless they are married to each other. By pointing out your unwillingness to tolerate any type of immoral sexual activity – be it homosexual or heterosexual – you will be indicating to your children that you are not so-called homophobic, just God-loving. You love God and therefore will follow his purpose for creating men and women and for designing a specific, purposeful manner of procreation and expression of physical love.
Love and truth are not in opposition to each other. Admonishing sin is often necessary because we love our children and neighbors and don’t want to see them go against God. It’s not just an intellectual battle, but also a spiritual one. Hopefully, with mom and dad’s unceasing prayers, with them helping their youngsters analyze Scripture and learn the Catechism, and with them knocking into their kids’ heads a dose of common sense combined with biological facts, parents can help their children break away from moral relativism and stand firm in being counter-cultural in the area of sexuality.
A PRINCIPAL'S PRINCIPLES FOR PARENTING 