(The reason I wrote this was due to a friend's request to hear about what the Church teaches. I'm trying to keep it as brief as possible, so if it comes off as brash or rude I sincerely beg your forgiveness, it is not my intent to be rude.)
This will be a brief post on what the Church teaches on the issue of homosexuality/same sex attraction. I am not claiming the authority of being absolutely correct, but I present this as my understanding of Church teaching, and to do this I will only be drawing from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, thus, all paragraph citations will be from that source.
The Teaching:
Who: The teaching concerns those who have same sex attraction (SSA from now on in this post), the Church herself, as well as all of humanity. Those who experience SSA are human beings and persons as much as any others who don't; the Church calls herself and the whole world to treat those with SSA with the full dignity that all human beings deserve. Thus, discrimination against those with SSA is a depraved action that must be avoided and combated.
What: The Church says that the inclination of having SSA is objectively disordered; it is contrary to the natural order, and for those inclinations to be acted on would be an act of grave depravity. (my own interpretation at this point: This is not singling out SSA as being the one big disorder of humanity; because of the fall of humanity, many people experience disorders that they should not act on: Some that are worse in the realm of sexual disorders would be pedophilia, masochism, necrophilia, and many others). This being the case, for most of those who have SSA it will constitute a trial for them, it will be something they need to struggle with. AGAIN, those who experience SSA do not have any less dignity as human beings because their sexual inclinations are disordered, they still deserve the full respect that is to be given to all human beings.
When: The genesis of the Church teaching can be traced back to the writings of the Old Testament, and its evolution can be traced from there through the writings of the New Testament, the writings of the early church fathers, and the writings of theologians up to the present day. Throughout the centuries the basics have remained the same: properly ordered human sexuality is directed towards the opposite sex and is unitive and open to the beginning of new life. Anything other than this is disordered.
Where: There have been many "where's" in history when this teaching was hard to accept due to the cultural context of the time, among them are: Rome and Greece during the time of the early Church, at certain times in the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance, during the Enlightenment, and finally today in Europe and America.
Why: The Church teaches this because it comes from Revelation, is formed in the furnaces of human reason, and is given to the world out of the belief that it will help the world become a better place.
Upshot of all this: (these are MY OWN INFERENCES based on the above understanding of Church teaching)
- The dignity of those with SSA needs to be emphasized strongly by those in the Church. This is especially a problem in my corner of Southern Missouri, where intolerance and homophobia are everywhere and they need to be combated, though combated gently and with charity so as to respect the human dignity of all involved
- As the Church believes that homosexual acts are disordered, they cannot be tolerated, but as they are on a similar level as other disorderd acts (masturbation, pre-marital relations, etc...), they should not be made out as to be more horrible than these other disordered actions
- Discussion needs to happen on an understanding of a single, lay vocation. As we are calling for those with SSA to live a celibate life, we need to at least begin to make explicit what that life should look like
Citations: the following paragraphs of the CCC were explicitly used: 2357, 2358, 2359, and 2396. However, I have read the whole book, so implicitly everything has been drawn on, especially the sections that deal with human dignity.