This is the consequence of conceding the field to militant homosexual advocates who politically bastardize the language. They tell us that sodomy is "gay," and that "sexual perversion" somehow evolved to "sexual deviance," then to "sexual preference," and finally to "sexual orientation" - an evolution necessary to anesthetize the public as to what is really going on. The final "evolved" state, "sexual orientation," has been proven to be a lie many times over, as previously addressed.  Even if there were a "gay" gene, does that make the aberrant behavior of homosexuality any less so? There have been genetic arguments made for alcoholism, adultery (promiscuity) and serial killing. Certainly, no one would argue for the acceptability of such ruinous behavior just because it is "in our genes."

   The real tragedy of the discussion of Matthew Shepard's death is the absence of human reason illumined by faith and consciously motivated by the desire to do the will of God.

   An example of the lunacy surrounding the Shepard case is Katie Couric of NBC blaming Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council  for the Shepard murder.

   This is patently ridiculous and, as a Roman Catholic, I strongly protest the inference by a representative of NBC news that those who genuinely love individuals inclined to homosexual acts by telling them the truth of the well documented physical, psychologiical, and especially spiritual ruin associated with their lifestyles are the reason for their problems.

   Matthew Shepard's death was horrible because he was a human being indistinguishable from other human beings whose life was snuffed out because a Commandment of God was violated. He joins a group of individuals who have met brutal death as a prelude to meeting their Maker. At least Shepard's death is recognized as punishable by law. Infants at the moment of birth in this country currently have no such protection. Their lives are brutally terminated by the puncturing of the back of their skulls by scissors while they hang kicking almost totally out of the womb, and the subsequent sucking out of their brains while their lifeless little bodies go limp. And that's the "law" in the United States of America, according to an activist judiciary who is allowed to consistently usurp its constitutional authority by most recently overturning the Partial Birth Abortion ban.  Does it not strike the country as hypocritical that senators like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy are mute when it comes to the hate involved in the brutal killing of innocents in what should be their safest place of refuge, their mothers' wombs? 

   The real tragedy of Matthew Shepard's death is that it is somehow elevated to a higher plane whereby the lifestyle of the individual carries a higher precedence than the intrinsic worth of the individual himself as a creation of the Almighty. We do not need to search for the reasons for this crusade. They are well known and the modus-operandi of a group of people who will use anything, any individual, to suit their agenda which is the forced acceptance of sexual deviancy as normal upon society as a whole.

   I would ask this group to please explain to me how Matthew Shepard's death differs from that of any number of similar brutal deaths occurring in the world to include partial birth infanticide? I would ask this group how Matthew Shepard's death differs from that of a Wisconsin priest whose throat was slashed from ear to ear - the priest having the courage to speak out against the hedonism engulfing the world in a new dark age to include, in particular, sexual deviancy. I would ask this group why equal treatment under the law is being perverted by raising the gravity of Shepard's death to insinuate that, somehow, his is "especially tragic" because of the lifestyle that he lived. How is it that his death is singled out, or for that matter, any death singled out as being a greater cause for concern than someone else's? Hate of some sort has to be involved in practically every murder, or any crime, for that matter.  There is nothing unique about Shepard's case in that regard. What is unique is the call for greater penalties in his case.

   Should a person who kills an alcoholic be seen as deserving of a greater sentence because of the lifestyle his victim led? No. Not in a rational world that values life from conception to natural death. Aha, but that's the rub, isn't it?

   People of faith and reason must never lose sight of the fact that the truth cannot be compromised. If an alcoholic was brutally murdered, the act would be condemned. There would not be a cry for the promotion of alcoholism, however, because it is recognized that such behavior is destructive. There is absolutely no difference between this and the Shepard situation. Except, that is, in the minds of those who would have us believe that being normal is abnormal, and vice-versa, e.g., the demonization of something called heterosexism, which is a threat to the acceptance of sodomy as a civil right in an affirmative action sense. 

   I do not believe the family and friends of Matthew Shepard have different feelings than those of serial killing victims. We are created equal in the eyes of God, the soul being the great "equalizer", that which distinguishes man from the animals.

   What is different, sadly, is the exploitation of Shepard's death by those who would trash the Constitution of this country and coerce a populace into accepting activities which are held in anathema by their faith, and contrary to right reason, i.e., common sense.   Many "clergy", and I use that term loosely, blame the Church for creating an atmosphere of hostility which led to Shepard's death. They forget the very reason for their existence and that of the Church - to caution mankind that there is a greater death to be feared than natural. The supernatural is totally ignored. What they fail to see is that the people who love individuals inclined to homosexual acts the most are those who are telling them the truth about their lifestyle, about a death far more final than anything of this world. They intentionally confuse hate for the sin with the sinner, an absolute prerequisite for those seeking to further the sodomite agenda.

   Authentic pastoral care identifies the causes of confusion regarding Church teachings. One is a new exegesis of Sacred Scripture which claims that Jesus has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality, or that He somehow approves of it, or that all of Scripture's moral injunctions are so culture-bound that they are no longer applicable to contemporary life. These views are gravely erroneous. They ignore the fact that the world in which the New Testament was written was already quite diverse from the situation in which the Sacred Scriptures of the Hebrew People had been written or compiled.

   For Christians, Jesus is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, another concept not directly mentioned in Sacred Scripture but still fully taught if one examines the underlying evidence. If Jesus is God, if Christians believe in a Triune God of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons in ONE God, than how can it be said that "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality" given that Sacred Scripture is the "inspired Word of God?" Moreover, the Bible itself records that much of what Jesus said was never written down. Jesus Himself wrote nothing. What we find in the Bible is the direction to hold fast to the teaching and Sacred Tradition of the Church which He founded upon the Rock that is Peter, "the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth." Above all, Jesus came to fulfill the old law, in particular, its moral force, not to abolish it. In doing so He would have obeyed the Fourth Commandment "Honor thy Father and thy Mother." One honors their parents by first and foremost obeying them, in particular, in light of the consequences to the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19 commanded by the ONE TRIUNE God,  as referenced in New Testament Jude. 

   What should be noticed is that there is a clear consistency within the Scriptures themselves on the moral issue of homosexual behavior. The Church's doctrine regarding this issue is thus based, not on isolated phrases for specious theological argument, but on the solid foundation of a constant Biblical testimony.

   Scripture is very clear on the teaching against homosexuality. An eschatological perspective is developed by St. Paul when, in 1 Cor 6:9, he lists those who behave in a homosexual fashion among those who shall not enter the Kingdom of God. Saint Paul is distinguishing the importance of supernatural death over natural death, the former having eternal consequences as opposed to the latter.

   In Romans 1:18-32, still building on the moral traditions of his forebears, but in the new context of the confrontation between Christianity and the pagan society of his day, Paul specifically addresses the sodomite condition with its dire consequences as an example of the blindness which has overcome mankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry, in particular the worship of the "god-in-the-mirror",  has led to all kinds of moral aberrations. Homosexual relations are a function of the resulting disharmony due to the work of the devil, who prowls the world like a raging lion seeking the ruin of souls.  Finally, in 1 Timothy 1, in full continuity with the Biblical position, Paul singles out those who spread wrong doctrine and in v. 10 explicitly names as sinners those who engage in homosexual acts. The Church, obedient to the Lord who founded her and gave to her the sacramental life, celebrates the divine plan of the loving and life-giving union of men and women in the sacrament of marriage, the latter, procreation, being the primary purpose of marriage since man is procreating to populate Heaven in accord with God's plan at creation, not just for survival of the species.   It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.  In particular, this immorality is magnified by the oxymoronic contention that sodomites can be married, which is blasphemous, in complete ignorance of the natural law of God, which is a participation in His divine eternal law. 

   Nevertheless, increasing numbers of people today, even within the Church, are bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Church to accept the sodomite condition as though it were not disordered and to condone homosexual activity. Those within the Church who argue in this fashion often have close ties with those with similar views outside it. These latter groups are guided by a vision opposed to the truth about the human person, which is fully disclosed in the mystery of Christ. They reflect, even if not entirely consciously, a materialistic ideology which denies the transcendent nature of the human person as well as the supernatural vocation of every individual. This is the root of the exploitation of Matthew Shepard's death on the part of militant sodomite activists. 

   To respect the dignity of those inclined to homosexual acts refers to an ontological dignity resulting from man being made in God's Image and Likeness, not a moral dignity having priority, which is a function of man knowing right from wrong, to which those inclined to sodomitic acts are NOT deserving of respect but rather revulsion. 

   The real tragedy of Wyoming's Matthew Shepard is the hypocrisy of those who lament his early brutal death but forget the equally unnecessary brutal deaths of a generation of young people from a disease, AIDS, which has had a known cure for some time - obedience to the natural law of God rooted in the Decalogue knowable through reason not just revelation. A cure which is ignored by the disciples of diversity, an umbrella which covers any and all forms of freedom for the totally autonomous unencumbered self, i.e., a freedom which is confused with license.