Love is Love (except when it's not)

Gay people can’t really get married because their love isn’t the same as straight love. I heard and read phrases like this growing up in Catholicism. And that is probably the reason why I didn’t consider coming out sooner. I thought coming out meant pursuing a shadow of love, not the real thing. 

I remember sitting down with a gay Catholic one day, and he spoke about discerning whether or not it was okay for him to date men. He talked about experiences in prayer, the months he’d spent on the decision, and finally, his conclusion that God was okay with it. As I listened, there was only one phrase going through my mind over and over again, which I finally shared when he paused for me to respond; you can’t discern a sin, I told him. That was it. Little did I know that only a few months later, I would find myself needing to come to terms with my sexuality and (in a twist of irony) discerning whether or not I could date men. 

I first considered the possibility of a romantic relationship with a man because I fell for a guy. I immediately recognized that the stereotype I built of a hedonistic, gay relationship did not apply to what I was experiencing. This wasn’t just a desire to have sex; this was a desire to love someone completely, to care for them, to build a friendship, to cultivate honesty and vulnerability, and to create a Christian home where other people would find healing and rest. 

           The only difference between what I felt for him and my love for those closest to me was a romantic attraction—an attraction that was in addition to, not a replacement for, a real friendship. My assumption that all same-sex relationships were only physical was busted. But let me pause for a second. My goal in this writing isn’t to convince you to pick up a pride flag and support gay marriage (but if you did, I wouldn’t complain). My goal is to challenge the same assumption I had about the foundations of same-sex relationships because it is essential to building bridges. While we can debate the morality of same-sex marriage, what we should stop debating is whether or not two men or two women in a romantic partnership truly love each other. 

For decades, Catholicism has repeatedly used language that degrades people with same-sex attractions. Phrases like a man with same-sex attractions must reach affective maturity. Such maturity will allow him to relate correctly to both men and women.1 If we start with an assumption that an entire population can’t relate properly, how easy is it for us to then dismiss their experience? This practice of devaluing and dismissing this population is a huge reason why the world at large thinks that Catholics hate gay people. It is not just that Catholicism is opposed to gay marriage; it’s that its language and approach make it nearly impossible to acknowledge any good that might come from the LGBTQ+ community. 

I fell into this trap, and the reason why it was easy for me to dismiss the love between two people who weren’t heterosexuals was simply because I didn’t know any queer couples. I remember when I started going to a non-denominational church, I saw a gay couple show up to church week after week. I got to meet them, experience their hospitality and generosity, and hear how they met and how long they’ve been together. I heard stories about their struggles as a new couple and the tension they’ve navigated with unsupportive families. What struck me as I spent more time with them was that their love for each other was no different from what I saw in the dozens of straight couples I’d befriended through the years. 

Because you know what? Catholicism and Christianity at large don’t have a monopoly on the capacity to love selflessly. Even the apostle John emphasized this in his first epistle when he wrote Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (4:7). Perhaps the LGBTQ+ community is this generation’s Nazareth. Can anything good come from there? We know the answer to that question is an invitation (cf. John 1:46). Disagreement over topics like the morality of same-sex marriage doesn’t equal hate, but a refusal to recognize the genuine love between two people is a denial of their humanity. There is space within Catholicism to hold fast to the belief that same-sex marriage is wrong and still recognize the good in a same-sex relationship, but I cannot convince you of that. You must experience that for yourself. 

Even if you disagree with a same-sex relationship, can you get curious about the person before you and try to understand who they are and what moves them? How did they meet their partner? What do they love about their partner? How do they support each other? What kind of life have they built together? What does their love look like? Is it really that different from how you love?

1Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations (2005)