Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality - defamatory?

LookingFor

This is just something I've been wondering about recently..wondering if this has ever been tested or whether there is an issue here at all.

Obviously the church's teaching on homosexuality is offensive and unacceptable, but I'm wondering if it is moreover defamatory, and could be challenged as such in a court?

The church teaches, among other things, that homosexual people - though they should be free of violence and persecution - are 'disordered'.

Is this not defamation?

As I understand it, defamation doesn't have to identify a specific person in order to be defamation. Defamation can suggest a person or people by association with a location or a profession or what-not.

Has anyone, anywhere ever tried to take the Church to court over this? Has there ever been a test case on the matter?

Googling around I find references in state bills in California for example to the Church's 'defamatory' teachings regarding homosexuals, but I don't find evidence that it's ever been challenged in court.

It's just something I've been pondering the last day or so, just curious what the thinking is on this if there is any..

dreamer_ire

Not my particular area but I thought the RC church described 'the act of homosexuality' as immoral, unnatural etc etc. I could be wrong but I thought it was the whole love the sinner not the sin thing. I think the RC church teaches that gay men and women are not in themselves sinners... this only happens when someone engages in what they see as a 'sin'.

Not my views.... and am not RC, this is just how I perceived their teachings but like I said I could be wrong.

LookingFor

dreamer_ire wrote: »

Not my particular area but I thought the RC church described 'the act of homosexuality' as immoral, unnatural etc etc. I could be wrong but I thought it was the whole love the sinner not the sin thing. I think the RC church teaches that gay men and women are not in themselves sinners... this only happens when someone engages in what they see as a 'sin'.

Not my views.... and am not RC, this is just how I perceived their teachings but like I said I could be wrong.

This is correct. The simple state of being or even the desire is not a sin, the act is a sin (as per the catholic church).

However, seperately, the desire is considered 'disordered', though not a sin. They consider homosexuals to be 'disordered' whether you engage in the act or not - moreover they publish that and spread that claim. That's the crux of what I'm getting at. The suggestion that homosexuality is a disorder. It might be one thing to define a sin under Church doctrine, but the Church is not in a position to assign labels like 'disorder' without risking doing so falsely as per the understanding of 'disorder' by 'right minded people'. To my knowledge if I falsely say that someone has an illness, for example, or say anything that reflects negatively on their reputation or character in the eyes of 'right minded people', I could be sued for defamation. There are get-outs of course, protection in certain contexts, but I'm not sure if any of them apply here. I ponder if the church's teaching crosses that line or not.

The teaching IMO quite clearly reflects poorly and falsely on all homosexuals (their nature, their character etc.) regardless of the limitation of classifying just homosexual acts as sinful under Church teaching. The Church can define sins til the cows come home..they're just 'catholic sins', and they're 'right' in whatever way the Church wants to define them. But other claims are another matter, and they do make other claims in their teaching.

edit - it is however an interesting question if a religious organisation can be defamatory through definition of even their own concepts of 'sin' and so forth, where their casting of certain people or certain behaviour as 'wrong' or 'sinful' or whatever is not in accordance with state law. Casting certain things as sinful can obviously reflect badly on the reputation of certain people in the eyes of unquestioning believers .. so it is an interesting question if that is defamation where state law does not accept or uphold a religious group's negative judgement of someone or something. Is it really right or fair for a religious group to have that much power to damage a person's reputation or character merely on their own doctrine that relies on itself for substantiation and where it challenges the state's position? No one will argue with anyone casting negative aspersions about murderers, there is a general accord there with the state's position on murder, but on something like homosexuality, there is a conflict there.