Human dignity and homosexuality in catholic teaching: An anthropological disconnect between truth and love?

Abstract

Catholic teaching proposes a definition of sexual human dignity that finds truth and love in the meaning of sexual acts between spouses in heterosexual marriage. For those acts to be moral between fertile couples, they must be potentially-reproductive acts, but that requirement does not hold for infertile couples. The Church proposes sexual norms and legislation based on that definition. We propose a definition of human sexuality that finds love and truth in all just and loving heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual potentially-reproductive and non-reproductive acts, and we propose norms and legislation based on that definition. Underlying these different proposals are different sexual anthropologies and definitions of human dignity. In this paper we first briefly explain and then critique Catholic teaching on homosexual orientation, moral norms governing homosexual relationships, and legislative norms derived from these teachings and defended by the Church.