Dear Kevin,

The Church teaches that all people are made in God's image and are loved deeply by God. Original and actual sin have created imperfections, imbalances, and defects in our human nature, and it is sometimes difficult to love God back in response to His infinite love for us. Every human being is afflicted differently by these imperfections of nature.

Having said that, we must distinguish three things:

1. the person
2. his (or her) desires/attractions, and
3. his chosen acts.
   

Homosexual desires are an objective disorder since we are not designed by God for sexual activity with someone of the same sex. Since homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, they violate human nature, and freely choosing to engage in them would be sinful, similar to the way an unmarried person engaging in any type of sexual behavior is sinful.

With some it is very difficult, if not impossible, to chastely follow what is good according to our nature, but with God's grace it is possible. God would not command something He doesn't give us the means to accomplish. Grace, which primarily is channeled through the sacraments, and by maintaining a right relationship with God, is essential in overcoming disordered desires to act in unnatural and perverted ways. And just because we may live in a culture that has spent much energy within the past four decades rejecting God by denying these truths, it is not an excuse.

However, hating someone and doing them verbal, psychological, or physical harm is always seriously wrong. These people too need grace in order to overcome their disordered desires to harm those afflicted with same-sex attraction, as well as those that act upon it.

We are always called to love the sinner and hate the sin. In a nutshell, neither truth nor love can ever be compromised.

Paul

Dear Kevin,

Your comment that all men are flawed and that we all have sinned is correct but our flaws don't make us perfect, they make us flawed. By "flaws" we're not taking legitimate personal or racial differences, such as being short or tall, or having red or brown hair. Flaws relate to the darkening of the intellect and the weakening of the will; the concupiscence we all have, and the defects and disorders that we all have within our tainted nature from original and actual sin, which keep us from fulfilling our human nature for optimal happiness. Flaws ultimately relate to selfishness, derived from our own wills or from those that carved the way before us.

It is grace, God's supernatural life within us, won By Christ on the cross, that begins to heal and elevate us into what we are meant to be. This union of God primarily occurs by having a right relationship with Him through His Church; by His sacraments and by living His moral code.

Following our disordered tendencies could never result in true freedom or happiness.

Paul