“The Gay Issue”: Learning from the Pro-Life Movement

This is my fifth post in a series on understanding same-sex-attraction. The previous four posts are:
–On Terminology
–Within Catholicism
–Newman and Michelangelo
–Broadening Same-Sex-Attraction

In her book Unplanned, Abby Johnson discusses her first day as a volunteer for Planned Parenthood. She recalls, “As I waited, I was caught off guard by a few protesters on the other side of the fence. One fellow was dressed up as the Grim Reaper–he even carried a scythe. A woman took a spot outside the fence and began waving a huge placard with a picture of an aborted fetus on it–a grotesque image… Every now and then she’d shout out some antiabortion slogan.”

For a few decades after Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States, this was the image of the pro-life movement. Pro-lifers rallied outside of abortion clinics waving images of mangled fetuses and condemning the death within the “abortuaries.” Volunteers who escorted women from their cars into the clinics were called “deathscorts.” While attempting to convince women against having abortions, pro-lifers were not shy to use the words “murder” and “death.”…

The rest of this post can be found in my book, “I Desired You: An Intellectual Journal on Faith and Sexuality.” You can order a copy here.