Catholics And Homosexuality

First, let's consider a hypothetical scenario. A Catholic who is struggling with same-sex attraction and striving to live chastely and according to Church teaching is more likely to be persecuted by:

A. Society at-large and other homosexuals for being an "Uncle Tom" of sorts and not letting his/her sexual urges rule their lives.

OR

B. Other Catholics.

Which of the options presented would be regarded as bigots and which would be cast as liberators of the struggling homosexual for engaging in persecutory behavior?

Catholics, far from being bigoted with regards to homosexuals, seem to be taking the far less charitable route of deciding that sexually active homosexuals are perfectly ok. This, of course, not only demonstrates a profound lack of kindness on the part of the Catholic, as they clearly have little regard for the homosexual's soul.

Not only that, though, such an attitude makes a mockery of the above-mentioned chaste homosexual who wants to live as God would have them. When Catholics trumpet the need for same-sex unions (of whatever stripe) as some kind of remedy for societal prejudices, I wonder if they consider that what they are actually promoting is a nice mechanism for facilitating mortal sin. Or if they consider how this might affect homosexuals who are engaged in this great struggle.

Anyways, in thinking about all this, I'd like to provide a couple of examples:

This is Oscar Wilde. If you haven't read any of his work, I highly recommend doing so. He is one of the "classic" authors who is not overrated in the least. In addition to being a great writer, he was also a husband and father and homosexual.

And a death-bed convert to Catholicism. This is often ignored by those who exalt Wilde for his more libertine tendencies. But it's still there.

And then there's this guy:

This is, of course, Andy Warhol. What do folks think of when they hear his name? Campbell soup cans? Weird pictures of Elvis? As you go down the list, I'm betting his homosexuality gets mentioned way before his status as a Ruthenian Catholic and almost daily Mass attendee.

Or the fact that he at least claimed to be a virgin even up to a few years before his death.

Not that this makes him perfect or anything. A good bit of Warhol's artwork was pretty pornographic. However, consider the environments that surrounded him. If we take his claim of virginity at face value, that's a pretty impressive feat considering all the sexual hijinks of the times in which he lived.

Why am I bringing these guys up? To demonstrate a couple of things.

In the case of Wilde, you had a promiscuous homosexual who squandered a good bit of his life on bad stuff. In a real-life Prodigal Son story, though, he found God's mercy in the end. I present this to illustrate (a) that homosexuals should be prayed for and should not be treated as some kind of "lost cause" or otherwise beyond the reach of grace and (b) Wilde's conversion is the best part of his life and the most forgotten.

For Warhol, you have a homosexual who, while engaging in numerous other sinful behaviors (as all people do) still remained (apparently) chaste and still found time to go to Mass every day and live out his faith in other ways. To hear many talk, this is an impossibility by today's standards. What does that say about the chaste Catholic with same-sex attraction? That they should just give up and yield to their sinful inclinations.

Who are the haters in all this? Those who appreciate the struggle with sin and pray for their brethren in the conflict? Or those who cheer the combatants on toward their destruction in the name of some temporal cheerfulness?