Are Paedophiles More Virtuous than Gays?

When Israel Folau’s Australian rugby career was brutally ended in a manufactured furore over his social media post on ‘sinners’, what was immediately noticeable was that the Cancel Culture pearl-clutchers were only getting knicker-twisted about one group. After all, Folau’s laundry list of those destined for Hell named “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, atheists, idolators”. So, why did no one care about the hurty feelings of the drunks or adulterers?

No doubt, the response would be that it is uniquely wrong to condemn homosexuals, because they are innately homosexual. ‘Born this way,’ as the saying goes. Leaving aside that that claim is highly arguable (for instance, identical twins do not invariably have identical sexual preferences, which they must have, if one is unchangeably ‘born’ homosexual), the response should be: so what?

Christianity does not condemn anyone for homosexual orientation, but homosexual practice. But, the counter-argument runs, that’s an unfair expectation: that one could be inherently attracted to the same sex, but not allowed to act on the attraction. In Philosophy Now magazine, Rick Aaron argued that it cannot therefore be morally expected that a whole class of individuals – all gay people – remain loveless their entire lives. This is not humanly possible. Homosexuals, Aaron says, could not find a happy and meaningful life without putting their sexuality into practice.

Yet, that’s exactly what Catholicism demands of priests and nuns. Douglas Groothuis, professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary, points out, for the rest of us, it’s also the ethics that bound all Christians for nearly two millennia. Until very, very, recently, sex outside marriage was frowned upon. The stigma of unmarried pregnancy is a living memory. Australia had a genuine ‘stolen generation’ of children forcibly removed from unwed mothers by the state.

So, Folau’s ‘fornicators’ are in exactly the same boat as the homosexuals. Where was the outrage over their lot? Few of us indeed are saints: so how could we be expected to live up to such an ideal?

As for the difficulty of living by Christian ethics, far less controversial Christian teachings are just as difficult. How many of us are truly able to love our neighbour as ourselves? To turn the other cheek, if struck?

To argue from ‘human nature’ (i.e., the sexual drive) is a fallacy in any case. Many things are ‘natural’; few of them admirable or, almost all human beings agree, allowable. Rape, murder, incest, necrophilia – all of these are common in nature. To take a less egregious example, selfishness is an entirely natural human trait: one that we spend years weeding out of our toddlers.

So, many Christian ethics might seem practically impossible. Which is why, indeed, they are so often more honoured in the breach than in the observance. But if the highest ideals seem unachievable, that does not invalidate them. Christianity is a religion of forgiveness. “Lord, make me pure – but not yet!”, as Augustine wailed. The tug-of-war between Saturday night and Sunday morning is something nearly every Christian surely wrestles with. Indeed, a common criticism of Christianity is that it makes redemption too easy: ‘all you have to do is tell God you’re sorry and that’s it’.

Still, Christianity is a religion that celebrates self-denial as one of the highest acts of faith. From avoiding meat in Lent, to not chasing revenge, to avoiding pre-marital sex, Christianity demands as much as it forgives – and demands no more of homosexuals than it does of everyone else.

Except that, by refusing to endorse same gay marriage, it demands a commitment from homosexual Christians that has no chance of ever being overcome. Which, from a “human nature” argument seems cruel and unforgiving. But that is not the Christian view: in fact, Jesus lauded celibacy as a divine calling.

More to the point, if homosexuals are forbidden from acting on their innate desires for life, so are zoophiles and paedophiles. Christianity is quite clear in condemning those acts. If ‘progressives’ are going to demand an exception in Christian ethics for homosexuals, where do the exceptions end?

There is a growing movement in Progressive circles to re-define paedophilia. Our laws and social norms are currently quite clear: paedophilia is abhorrent and its practise is a heinous crime. The very existence of highly secretive paedophile networks only underscores just how unacceptable child sex abuse is generally regarded. Even the dregs of society, prison inmates, regard paedophiles as the lowest of the low. Regardless of the notable and lamentable failure of too many clergymen, Christianity fully agrees that paedophilia is not just a crime, but the worst kind of sin.

Progressives are trying to change all that.

For years now, there has been a momentum in Progressive media to ‘de-stigmatise’ paedophilia and to re-define it as a ‘sexual orientation’ rather than a crime. This is not fringe craziness, either. Mainstream publications such as Salon, The Atlantic and the New York Times have all published stories extolling so-called ‘virtuous paedophiles’. Twitter has spawned the acronym “NOMAPs”: “Non-Offending Minor-Attracted Persons”. Even the hit TV show The Good Doctor featured a ‘virtuous paedophile’ titled, I kid you not, “Empathy”.

But that doesn’t mean that progressives are openly advocating for paedophilia – not quite. Not yet. Not openly.

Instead, their argument is that paedophilia is only ‘wrong’ if it is acted on. That is, the so-called “NOMAPs” might lust after children, but so long as they don’t actively molest them, they remain ‘virtuous’. Not just pitiable, but admirable. There are arguments that NOMAPs are a ‘sexuality’, not an aberration, and should be a protected class, the same as homosexuals, transgenders and so on.

In other words, Progressives believe that it is not just entirely possible, but admirable, to demand of paedophiles what it argues Christianity should not ask of homosexuals. Such a plain contradiction is only reconcilable if one accepts that either homosexuals can and should be celibate, or that paedophiles must be free to “be their full selves” (to borrow from Rainbow jargon): that is, molest pre-pubescent minors to the full satisfaction of their ‘sexual orientation’.

There is also the possibility that both are wrong, of course. We can reject both traditional Christian morality and Progressive amorality.

Even so, there is one thing that Christianity has morally in its favour that Progressivism does not: Christianity does not abhor homosexuality in the same way it does paedophilia. Of course, the Christian New Testament says little explicitly about either homosexuality or paedophilia. But the Bible is quite clear that while all sin is wrong, some sins are far worse than others. And while Jesus himself said nothing at all about homosexuality, he explicitly condemned in the harshest terms those who harm children.

Worse, the logical conclusion of the Progressive argument is that paedophiles are more virtuous than gays. Paedophiles are supposedly easily capable of a level of virtue that gays cannot achieve.

I doubt that many homosexual people would be flattered by such a comparison.