I FOUND it difficult to get the hang of Mr McLean's letter (Herald March 14), but the whole tenor of it seemed to he that homosexuals were • essentially' (the word is his), 'promiscuous even when there appears to be a regular partner.'
It looks as though the old bogey of 'intrinsically disordered has crept into his reasoning. I should have thought homosexuals were no more 'essentially' promiscuous than heterosexuals 'essentially' chaste.
We are all, of course, damaged to some extent, led off course by Original Sin — 'groaning' as the good St Paul would have it. But I will agree with him on at least one proposition: that God is the ultimate judge, Indeed I thank Him daily for it.
Certainly a loyal and committed relationship between homosexuals is more difficult to achieve (though divorce rates among homosexuals are not immediately to hand!) — and for obvious reasons.
The absence of the cohesion of family life and the oppression of society contribute to this sad fact.
Hut I wonder if Mr McLean has ever considered this point. Homosexuals who do achieve such a relationship (there are many of us) do so inspite of the absence of social props. It is a relationship, like any good heterosexual relationship, which has to be hammered out on the anvil of honesty and trust. Unfortunately (perhaps fortunately) for us the hammer is heavier and the anvil harder.
Mr McLean writes "The human problem of homosexuality demands, as well as sympathetic understanding, informed pastoral care, which is not evident in extracts quoted from the Quakers and Methodists and implied to Anglicans," He will know, as a scientist, that an assessment of serious documents on 'extracts' is not a careful way of arriving at a balanced view of any subject. I quote from The Church and the Homosexual by Fr John McNeil: "I believe no more urgent task faces the moral theologian than the difficult and complex undertaking of determining that Finality (i.e. the intrinsic role homosexuals must play in the Divine plan), For on its discovery depends both the ability of the homosexual to accept himself or herself 'with true self-love and understanding and the ability of the heterosexual society to accept a homosexual minority, not just as objects of pity and tolerance at best, but as their equals, capable of collaborating in the mutual task of building a more humane society."
Frank Richards Cheshire