Jutta Burggraf - Letters to David: Understanding and Helping the Male Homosexual

LETTERS TO DAVID

Understanding and Helping the Male Homosexual

Jutta Burggraf

Originally published as Cartas a David Acerca de la Homosexualidad

Ediciones Palabra, S.A

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This pamphlet is divided into two. The first part, which bears the title of this work, is composed of a series of letters to David, a male homosexual, from Mary, a married woman and a mother. They had been classmates back in college. Bound by a deep friendship, Mary uses this as the base from where she supports and consoles David in his travails and failings as well as in his efforts to bounce back and rebuild his life.

Through these letters, the author wants to make us understand that people with homosexual tendencies are a special breed. Despite the brevity of this novel exchange between two friends, the reader gets more than enough information to understand how a gay person feels and suffers, struggles and falls, and what he or she seeks and loathes in life. The homosexual condition is difficult to fathom and is often rejected in un-Christian and even inhuman ways. Yet, homosexuals are the ones who need the most understanding. As the Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the homosexual tendency is "intrinsically disordered" and a "trial" for a vast majority of men and women who experience "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." It also clearly affirms that such persons must be "accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."

It is therefore unjust to condemn them. Sins related to human sexuality are not a predominant concern in Christian morality. In fact, the weightier sins are those of the spirit. What is more important in Christian morality? Without doubt, lovenot sexual love but the love of self-giving, love-sacrifice. Christian morality aims to bring persons to discover love and union with God, which is why it cannot center on sexuality, man being not just a sexual creature.

In this light, the appendix of this pamphlet reproduces a meaty interview with Fr. Georges Cottier, the famous "theologian of the Pope," on the celebration of Gay Pride in Rome in July 2000.

FIRST LETTER

Yesterday, you told me

Dear David,

Yesterday, as we talked lengthily, you confessed to me that you are gay, and I kept quiet. You talked about your experiences, plans, dreams, and failures but I could only give you standard answers. Forgive me! You started talking faster and to a pitch. Finally, you could no longer stand my silence and insisted that I tell you what I thought about it. I could not answer. My head was swimming in a flurry of images, feelings, doubts, and convictions.

My mind is clearer now and I want to share with you some of my thoughts. I hope that they can help you somehow. You have helped me so many times last year and I would be happy to do something for you now, even if it is but to give you a realistic and positive view of your life.

I was not shocked. Frankly, I already had an inkling of it, not because of the earring or the ponytail which suits you, but because of your behavior, the things you say, and the way you look at and react to things. Besides, people talk; but you know very well that I don't give much importance to that.

Neither was I offended. We have known each other since college. I like you very much and love you as a brothereven if we haven't seen each other for a long time. I do not know why people turn gay: Genes? Psychological factors? Whatever the reason, I know that it makes a person suffer a lot, just as an illness or a painful deficiency does. Who would be offended with a friend who is sick?

Let me tell you why I kept quiet. Will you let me be as frank as you were with me? I feel a lot for a person in pain. I want to be encouraging but, at the same time, I am not for cheap consolations: I want to guide a person but without resorting to fixed formulas. I want to help without wounding. I am ready to bear the burden with you but without condoning the subculture that is often linked with the gay world: drugs, prostitution, pornography. In a word, despair.

Yes, I am convinced that you are hurting deep inside, even if you say that being gay is normal. But how can it be normal for a man to go to bed with another man, or a woman with another woman? Even if 90% of the populace would want to do this, it will never be "normal" because it goes against the deepest aspect of our nature. If we engage in acts that have something to do with our capacity to generate new life, without considering our existential situation or that of others, then we destroy something in us: Call it interior harmony or the radical meaningfulness of our actions. Besides, the statistics spread by the gay movement are all blown up. Don't get involved with those pressure groups!

I know that you are a very sensitive person and that you never want to take advantage of others for your own pleasure. More importantly, you do not want to corrupt those young boys who sometimes feel tendencies like yours at a certain stage of their life. This is normal and, if they ignore it, then that tendency will disappear after some time. Unfortunately, many of your colleagues take advantage of these young persons' emotional confusion. No wonder parents and teachers are so concerned. Of course, gays must not be isolated or treated with prejudice but you must also try a little harder to make others trust you.

No, you do not want to abuse others. You see them as human beings (you have always been quite a philosopher!), and not as mere instruments for satisfying your selfish desires. You say that you are really in love with your friend Paul and that you are trying to build a "community of life and love" with him. You want to marry him, even if the term is not recognized in France, where you plan to live. That is why you talk about a civil union. You even want to adopt his daughter and have your own child in the future with the help of technology. You demand state support for this enterprise. I understand your restlessness, your sincere desire to share your life with another person but society must and cannot make a new law in this regard. It should not recognize all the sentimental unions that people may form in private. To understand gay persons is one thing; it is a totally different matter to legalize and so make social prototypes out of alternative "unions." This would notably weaken marriage and the family and with it, harm all the citizens in a direct or indirect way. Besides, would you really ask a woman to lend her body to something as unnatural as surrogate motherhood? Every child has the right to be the fruit of its parents' love and not of some laboratory procedure.

Would you pay a woman to give birth to a child that she will never see again? Think about it: those poor children with two fathers and not a mother in sight! You know very well what authoritative studies in developmental psychology say: A child needs a father and a mother. In a mother, a child finds a sense of security, protection, and shelter different from what it can find in a father. Father and mother influence a child's intelligence, capacity to love, and social behavior in very distinct ways. Thus, the cooperation of both is the best guarantee for a child's healthy development.

You say that the next best thing would be to allow the mother to visit the child often, but this can only bring about constant conflict where the child would have to choose between his "biological" parents and his "nominal" parents. Besides, you know very well that homosexual relations are hardly stable. I do not need to remind you of the recent surveys. Yesterday, you told me yourself about the rampant incidents of jealousy and intrigues among you. You have had many boyfriends and, many times, you wanted to enter a "civil union" with one of them but the attempts always failed because of infidelity. How many times do you want to reprise Oscar Wilde's experiences?