My entry on “Homosexuality and Terminological Social Engineerint” has triggered a vigorous debate on this site; and. I have found both the supportive and the critical responses thoughtful and impressive. (I thank Joseph Pearce for pointing out that the “homo” in “homosexual” etymologically means “same”; however, I must again note that in the neologistic polemical term “homophobia” it means “homosexual”.) For my immediate purpose I want to single out Kevin O’Brien’s remarks that it is perfectly normal and proper for people to stigmatize reprehensible behaviour with opproprious terms; and when an individual becomes conspicuously addicted to a particular kind of reprehensible behaviour, to attach the term to him personally (in certain contexts, at any rate). Kevin instances the terms “miser”, “skinflint”, and “lecher”. Christ, the Apostles and the Evangelists made liberal use of terms of social and moral opprobrium, such as “fornicators”, “adulterers”, “idolaters”, “hypocrites”, and so on.

Such language serves as a public censure of the kind of behaviour denoted. Moreover, it serves as social pressure to encourage guilty individuals to abandon the behaviour; and it also discourages people who are tempted towards the behaviour from succumbing to the temptation. Certainly the strong cultural disapproval of homosexual behaviour which has been expressed and reinforced in almost all cultures by unflattering terms for homosexuality, active or passive, has discouraged vast numbers of individuals who, through no fault of their own, have felt same-sex attractions from succumbing to these feelings, or has delayed their doing so; and from a Christian perspective this is, both spiritually and humanistically, a good thing. On the other hand, can there be the slightest doubt that except for the collapse of public support for Christian sexual values from the mid-1960s, not only in secular society but within the Church (witness the episcopally-tolerated “conscience lie” which became the epicentre of teaching on sexual morality in Catholic institutions), far fewer Catholics, including priests, would have succumbed to homosexual, paedophilic, or normal heterosexual temptations than have done so? I know orthodox, seemingly prayerful priests whose intention was to be morally good but who have fallen; and I doubt that they would have if the social atmosphere in and outside the Church had been morally healthier. Of course, that does not excuse them, but it does constitute a mitigating circumstance.

Behind the drive to prosecute and persecute through law all who speak unflatteringly of homosexuality, even in private (witness in particular Canada), is a recognition that people like to feel – indeed, crave to feel – that their dearest values and practices are regarded favourably or respectfully by their society. Moreover, the less they are attached to any religious moral code, the more they will be dependent on social and cultural attitudes for guidance; and the greater will be their resentment of social and cultural attitudes condemnatory or contemptuous of behaviour to which they are committed. The secularist impuritans have consequently contrived a spurious “right to social respect” for politically correct sexual behaviour, especially homosexual behaviour; and they seek to enforce acceptance and observance of this bogus “right” by laws of the kind in question, as well as by language engineering. 

We orthodox Catholics and orthodox other Christians, for our part, are duty bound by our involvement in the culture wars – an involvement which has been forced on us all, whether we like it or not – to seek to infuse the cultural atmosphere with linguistic signals of approval for what is good, and disapproval of what is wrong, as one means of exerting benign social pressure and countering malign social pressures. That means making appropriate use of language which serves as such signals – and in colloquial speech, making appropriate use of colloquial language which does so.