Many people believe that the Catechism teaching on homosexuality is well known: in effect, you can be gay, just don't do gay (which makes as much sense as saying you can be left-handed, just don't write left-handed - but I'm not getting into that, today).
2357 Homosexuality ....... has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
What those "many people" overlook, is another, equally important line in the Catechism, which has been far too frequently ignored by people who should know better, such as some of the Catholic bishops and Vatican bureaucracy). That line demands that we must be accepted with "respect, compassion, and sensitivity".
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. ......
Lesbian and gay Catholics would do well to take careful note of this line, memorise it, and quote it every time they encounter hostile, orthotoxic Catholics quoting the previous line. There are good grounds for challenging the statements and conclusions in the hostile line (the claims about Scripture are disputed by many modern Bible scholars, the claim from "natural law" debatable), but no grounds that I am aware of for challenging the line on respect, compassion and sensitivity.
Even where lip-service is paid to this important Catholic teaching, the full implications are often ignored. At America blog last week, Fr James Martin SJ expanded on the significance of the line, and what it implies, in a lengthy and valuable post.
