Bryce

The Second Semester

Chapter 18 - St. Paul

            All during the fraternity meeting, Bryce sat next to Damon and clasped his hand, as though he feared his lover would disappear once again.  He took almost no part in the meeting, being focused on Damon.  Damon seemed in a similar mood.  As soon as the meeting was over, without waiting to talk to anyone else, the two ran back to their dorm rooms.  They had much to discuss.

            Bryce began, “I’m sorry.  I’ve been a stubborn fool.  I’ve been arrogant, too, thinking I could decide something as significant to our relationship as our sex lives without even mentioning it to you ahead of time.  Father Miller made me see how wrong I’ve been.  Please, please, forgive me.”

            “Bryce, I love you.  I don’t think I’ve ever really loved anyone before.  When it looked like you were taking me for granted, I reacted, maybe too strongly.  I’ve been treated like shit all my life until I met you.  Then, everything changed, and I saw a whole new world opening up before me.  Last Sunday, it looked like that world was suddenly lost.  It looked like I was being shunted aside, and told to just forget what I wanted or how I felt until you were ready for me again.  It looked like the person I loved did not love me,” Damon explained.

            “Oh, Damon, I never ceased loving you,” Bryce cried.  “My mind was clouded by pride, and I did not realize how what I was doing affected you.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry.  Please forgive me.”

            “I already said I would.  Now, let’s kiss and make up,” Damon said with a grin.

            The two young men leaned towards each other, and tentatively touched lips.  It was almost as though they had never done this before.  It was almost like a new beginning.  Almost.  Except there was also the familiarity of someone loved.  The tentative kiss lingered, and became less tentative.  Bryce threw an arm over Damon’s shoulder, and pulled him closer.  Damon responded with an arm around Bryce’s torso.  His hand on Bryce’s back pushed, and they drew closer still.  Their kiss expanded, grew passionate, and absorbed their entire being.  They merged from two uncertain lovers into a single thing, a personification of love.

            The rest of the evening was spent making up for lost time.

            The next morning, Bryce awoke around six o’clock as usual.  He was more than a little stiff, as the single dorm beds were not meant for two people, but he was very happy finding Damon in bed with him.  He thought about staying in bed.  He thought about waking Damon.  In the end, he did neither, but slipped away, making his way to the fitness center.  There, he soon encountered Curtis.

            “You sure disappeared awfully fast last night,” Curtis complained.  “But I must say you look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

            “Damon and I had some making up to do,” Bryce explained as his friend spotted him as he lifted his weights.

            Curtis chuckled.  “Yeah.  The rest of us kind of noticed.”

            “You mean like everyone has noticed how you feel about Maddy?” Bryce returned.

            His friend chuckled again.  “Kind of.  But I haven’t been going around like the world was coming to an end, and then suddenly lighted up like a Christmas tree.”

            “Just wait until you and Maddy have a serious disagreement,” Bryce threatened.

            “Oh, we did that over Christmas.  Making up is great, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah,” Bryce agreed dreamily, but his distraction caused him to almost drop his weights, so he focused on his workout.

            The workout, the hot tub, and the sauna all felt wonderful and left Bryce feeling like a new man.  He was in a great mood when he returned to his dorm room to rouse Damon.  He entered the room, making no effort to be quiet, as it was time for Damon to get up.  His partner stubbornly remained beneath the covers.  Bryce approached the bed.  He pealed the sheet down from Damon’s face.  He leaned way over, and kissed his lover.  Damon’s hand suddenly clasped him behind his head, and pulled him in, as Damon returned the kiss with considerable interest.

            When they broke for a breath, Bryce grinned as he said, “Time to wakey wakey.”

            Damon replied, “If you’re going to talk like that, I’m going to stop your mouth again.”

            “Oh, please do,” Bryce grinned.

            So Damon again pulled him into an intimate embrace and kissed him.  Only when they had completed another lengthy kiss was Damon prepared to get up and face the day.  But he dressed quickly, and the two went off to breakfast before their first class.

            Over breakfast, they talked some.  The student cafeteria was hardly the best place for an intimate conversation.  Damon cautiously asked, “What about this Lent thing?”

            “Father Miller made me see I didn’t have to do it that way.  There are other ways of observing Lent,” Bryce replied.

            “I think I need to thank your Father Miller,” Damon chuckled.

            “I definitely do.  But we do need to work this out.”  He considered their schedules, “Unless we go off campus at lunch time, there’s no real time to talk until three o’clock.”

            “Lunch off campus on a M-W-F is probably not a good idea.  Only one hour, and with everything within a convenient distance crowded,” Damon considered.  “Since we’re agreed that, whatever it is, it’ll be decided together, I guess waiting until this afternoon won’t be a problem.”

            Bryce quickly kissed him.

            “How can you kiss another guy, Fag?” a voice nearby complained.

            Bryce was getting up.  He turned to face the speaker.  It was a rough looking kid with his baseball cap on backwards.

            “You mean you don’t know?  Here, let me show you,” Bryce said, as he started towards the speaker, his arms extended and his lips in a pucker.

            The guy panicked.  “No!  Stay the hell away from me!”  He tried to scramble backwards, but tipped over his chair and landed on the floor.

            “Some other time, then, Deary,” Bryce acted out.  “I need to get to class now, or I’d stay and enlighten you.”

            Damon was laughing so hard he could barely make it across the cafeteria and out the door.

            It was amazing how much better the professors lectured that morning.  Dr. Anjot and the rest of the class seemed to make the Romantic passion of Victor Hugo come alive.  Bryce was certain that his own contributions were nothing short of Nobel Prize quality.  And the reasoned common sense of Samuel Johnson seemed so perfectly clear that no sane person could possibly disagree.

            When eleven o’clock arrived, Bryce met with the other officers of the GLBT Club and with their counter parts in Beta Beta Beta, the Biology honorary society, to plan a joint meeting at which Dr. Harris would give a talk on biological factors in sexual orientation.  As it turned out, Dr. Harris was also the faculty advisor to the honor society, and was present at the meeting.  One fellow, the Tri-Beta secretary, looked uncomfortable throughout the meeting, but, for the most part, it came off without a hitch.  Weekends, including Fridays, was not a good time for such a meeting, as students tend to be more concerned with social interaction on weekends than with intellectual pursuits.  It was finally decided to schedule the joint meeting on the regular GLBT Club meeting night, the second Wednesday of the month.  February was too soon, Dr. Harris protested, and March was out, as the second Wednesday fell during the spring break, so it would be April.  That would be April 14, the Wednesday after Easter, which seemed to be satisfactory to everyone concerned.  They planned publicity, and determined which club would be responsible for which activities.  The GLBT Club would handle publicity and a reception afterwards.  Tri-Beta would secure the meeting site, somewhere in Audubon Hall, and would run everything by the Student Council and the Vice-President for Student Affairs to secure the required permissions.  Everyone agreed that Tri-Beta would have more success with the Administration than the GLBT Club after the brouhaha created by the radicals at the beginning of the semester.

            By the time everything was worked out, it was past noon.  Bryce hurried from the meeting room down one flight to the cafeteria, where he encountered both Damon and DuBois Kennedy.  When Bryce and Damon embraced, DuBois smiled.  “I’ll leave you two alone.  I just wanted to make sure you were treating my former pledge right,” he told Bryce.

            “I’ve got a lot of reparation to do, but I’ve really enjoyed the making up so far,” Bryce responded.

            Damon grinned.

            Over lunch, Bryce related to Damon the results of the meeting he had just attended.  As they were eating, Mike Sandoval and David Simpson came by.

            “I hear you’ve been ignoring my boyfriend,” Mike complained.

            “Oh, Gee!  I’m sorry, David.  I did get your e-mail.  It’s still on my computer.  It’s just that I’ve had a lot on my plate the past few days.  Sorry.  Look, I’ll try to work up something about St. Paul, but it’s probably going to be Saturday at the earliest before I can meet with you,” Bryce apologized.

            “I know.  The whole world knows.  I’m really happy to see you and Damon together.  And I’m not going to slit my throat because of something St. Paul wrote, I just what to see what you have to say about it.  You did say you Catholics were a New Testament church, and St. Paul is kind of important in that context,” David lightly responded.

            “To say the least,” Bryce agreed.  “And I agree, too, that considering what he has to say is important.  I just haven’t had time or energy to deal with it yet.”

            “I’m glad you’re around to deal with these questions,” Mike said.  “I don’t even understand what the problem is most of the time, much less have a solution.”

            “That’s because you’re essentially anti-intellectual,” Bryce teased him.

            “Don’t say such things about my boyfriend, or I’ll have to hit you with my purse,” David clowned.

            “You’re attracting attention,” Damon commented.

            “Screw them,” David declared, and gave the finger to someone at a nearby table staring at them, to the surprise of the others, as he was usually a pretty mild mannered young man.

            They broke up, with Bryce and Damon headed out to their Biology class.  Encountering Dr. Harris in the corridor, Bryce again thanked him for agreeing to speak at the joint meeting.  He replied that it was all part of enlightening others, which was what teaching was all about.

            In History, Dr. Dickinson was lecturing on Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745).  Sir Robert, a Norfolk squire, had a combination of ability and diplomacy which enabled him to carve out a place for himself in British history as the first Prime Minister, a position he held for 21 years, making him the longest serving prime minister in British history as well as the first.  Unfortunately, there was no official position with that designation, so there are those who contest his claim to fame.  Sir Robert was also the third of seventeen children, making him the prime minister with the largest number of siblings.

            Emerging from the South Sea scandal essentially unscathed in 1721, Walpole made himself indispensable as the go-between linking the Monarch, King George I, and his cabinet of advisors, on the one hand, with a majority in the House of Commons, which could pass the legislation needed to implement the government’s proposals, on the other.  Walpole was no great financial genius as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was a deft administrator perfectly suited to the times.  His policy of “letting sleeping dogs lie” with respect to the North American colonies would later have serious consequences, but fit perfectly the spirit of the early eighteenth century.  He lost favor the first time upon the death of King George I in 1727, as his successor, George II, immediately dismissed all his father’s ministers.  However, George II soon discovered that he could not get the government to function properly without Walpole, and was constrained to reappoint him to the Exchequer, although he refused to meet him personally for years.  Thus, the most influential man in the government, who set the tone for the entire administration, was essentially independent of the favor of the Monarch as long as he had the support of a majority in Parliament.  He lost favor during the conflict variously known as the War of Jenkins Ear, King George’s War, and the War of the Austrian Succession.  A younger generation of super patriots, knows as the jingo faction, were impatient with his cautious policies.  In early 1742, Walpole was created Earl of Orford and kicked upstairs to the House of Lords, ending his dominant position in the government.

            As he considered this, Bryce decided that flexibility was not a bad idea.  It had served Walpole well for twenty-one years, and through him had served Great Britain well.  Although the spectacular military successes would come later, under Pitt, Walpole laid the foundations for what can possibly be considered the greatest empire the world has seen.  But it was necessary always to take into account what the public will support.  His failure to adapt led to Walpole’s fall in 1742.  Bryce considered that an important lesson for him in relation to Damon, and for the GLBT Club in relation to the University community.

            After History, Bryce made his way back to the dorm, where he connected with Damon.  They spent the remainder of the afternoon and all evening repairing their relationship after the storm of Sunday through Tuesday.  The most important foundation had been laid Tuesday evening, as they professed their deep love for each other.  But they had been so busy making up they had not bothered with the details.  On Wednesday they did the practical work of agreeing on specifics.  First of all, Bryce agreed that he would make no decisions affecting both of them without consulting Damon first, and vice versa.  This was essential to a partnership of equals.  The recent experience had made Bryce more sensitive to just how much Damon’s background counted in their relationship, and he gave thought to how that worked both ways.  So many things which seemed obvious to him, coming from his background, were not obvious to Damon, Lent being a prime example.  He would have to be more aware of this in the future.

            On the practical level, they agreed that during Lent there would be no off-campus eating except on Sundays, when the trips to the Olive Garden and to the soup kitchen would continue.  Bryce would also abstain from meat and beer, except on Sundays, but would not expect Damon to do the same.  After all, he was the Catholic, which imposed the obligation of observing Lent in some appropriate manner.  Damon was not.  As to sex, they would continue as at present, with no schedule or any other external restraint, making love as circumstances indicated.  Bryce still felt a little guilty about that, but not nearly enough to cause additional problems in his relationship with Damon.  It would be the focus of his prayers for a while.  After all, he comforted himself, there were lots of pseudo-Catholics who did not observe Lent at all, or only by having an elaborate fish dinner instead of steak on the Fridays of Lent.

            Thursday and Friday passed without incident, much more calmly than the early part of the week.  The most practical thing done was to order a queen size bed, with all the bedding, once he was sure it would fit in the room.  He and Damon decided to completely merge resources, with the corner room assigned to Bryce being the entrance and the study and leisure center, and with Damon’s room becoming their common bedroom.  When the new queen size bed arrived, it was installed in what had been Damon’s room, and the narrow individual beds furnished by the University were removed to storage in the basement.  The dorm proctor had become accustomed to strange things from Bryce, and so merely rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t tell me anything,” when Bryce sought permission.

            Bryce met with his English study group on Thursday evening.  There was an exam coming up on Wednesday, February 12, which was causing some of the students to be jittery.  Despite his personal ups and downs, Bryce felt he had a pretty good grasp of Samuel Johnson and his times, as least for purposes of this exam, and so tried to calm the fears of others and help them with any difficulties.  Johnson was a brilliant mind in a body which just would not keep up.  He saw the essential superficiality of much of the thought of his day, and so was a critic of society, not just of literature.  He was also a man of faith in a skeptical age, which likewise appealed to Bryce.  Much of the skepticism was also superficial, being essentially lazy thinking geared towards reaching the most comfortable conclusion for the enquirer.  Once the essential Johnson was grasped, the details tended to fall into place.  February 12, the date of the first Johnson exam, was also the date set by Sigma Alpha Tau for its eclectic Valentine/Mardi Gras party.  That would make things kind of tight as far as allocation of time was concerned.

            On Friday after the regular History class, the History study group met.  Once again, Bryce showed that he had a good grasp of the material.  Unfortunately, there was also an exam scheduled in this class not long after the other, on February 15, which was the Monday after the English exam and the SAT party.  Bryce heaved a sigh, and considered that the Fates just did not like him.  Practically speaking, that meant buckling down and putting in some serious time studying.  If it came down to the wire, he would have to let the fraternity and the GLBT Club simmer until these exams were past.  He would not stint God, and he would not stint Damon, but everything else came behind academics in his list of priorities.

            On Saturday, Bryce met with David Simpson.  This time they met at the University Center over cokes and coffee, commandeering a quiet corner for their discussion.  They examined the passages in the letters of St. Paul which were bothering David.  Bryce had consulted several references he had previously been given by Father Miller, and was prepared when David came to discuss these verses.  The section in Romans , chapter 1, was the longest, stretching from verse 18 through verse 32.  In it, St. Paul speaks of men who “having abandoned the natural use of the woman, ... burned in their lusts for one another.”  It is possible to dismiss this section on the ground that St. Paul is primarily concerned here with idolatry, and might be supposed to have in mind not homosexuality in general, but the male prostitution associated with certain pagan cults.  That explanation will not cut it when one comes to the passage in First Corinthians or in First Timothy.  In both cases, we are dealing with a list so sins.  The list in First Corinthians reads, “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor the evil-tongued, nor the greedy will possess the kingdom of God.”  That in First Timothy lists “the ungodly and sinners, criminals and the defiled, parricides and matricides, murderers, immoral people, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers ....”  Study of the koine Greek used by St. Paul in his writings indicates that the words he used, translated as “the effeminate” and “sodomites,” were malakos and arsenokoites.  Despite all efforts of some to come up with other translations, essentially they mean what in modern gay parlance is called “bottoms” and “tops.”

            In discussing this with David, Bryce had to admit that St. Paul meant to condemn homosexuals in the same categories as those other sinners he listed, and deny them the kingdom of God.  What was a modern gay to make of this?  Was there any way around the plain words of Holy Scripture?  Bryce’s conclusion was simple.  “If you insist on a literal interpretation, then there is no escaping the condemnation.  Gay sex is sinful, period.  I have read numerous attempts to explain it away, in such popular works as The God Box by Alex Sanchez, or more serious studies such as The Church and the Homosexual by John J. McNeill, and, frankly, they do not convince me.  They are special pleading.  You really have to twist the words of St. Paul to make them come out the way those authors want.”

            “So where does that leave us?” David despondently asked.

            “For you as a Protestant, that’s a problem.  From the time of Martin Luther on, one of the basic tenants of Protestantism has been sola scriptura, that is, the only authority in matters of faith is the Bible.  For me, as a Catholic, it’s a little easier,” Bryce said.

            “But your bishops and pope keep condemning gay sex, even more than many of the Protestant churches,” David protested.

            “I know.  But I’m talking being true to basic principles.  Despite the stance taken by some Protestant churches, their basic principle is still sola scriptura, and I think it is intellectually dishonest to profess that principle and refuse to accept the fact that St. Paul meant to condemn gay sex.  On the other hand, despite some of the stupid and uncharitable pronouncements of Catholic authorities, the basic principle in question here is that the final authority is the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit.  The Church decided what makes up the New Testament, and the Church has the authority to interpret it.  At the most basic level, this means the Church assembled in a general council, when we believe she is guided by the Holy Spirit, just as in the case of that Council of Jerusalem recorded in Acts when the apostles decided Christians were not bound by the Mosaic Law.  And no general council has interpreted the Gospel of Christ to condemn gay sex.  It’s true, there have been rules against it, just like the current ones, but those are attempts to apply basic teachings, not basic teachings themselves.”

            “That sounds very theoretical.  How does it work in practice?” David asked.

            “In practice, for anything which has not been defined as doctrine, I am free to follow my own conscience.  It would probably be wrong for me to publically attack the Church authorities, but as a matter of prudence, not a matter of salvation.  I owe obedience to these guidelines in so far as they do not violate my own conscience.  It gives me some boundaries in the proclaimed doctrines, but considerable leeway in the application,” Bryce explained.

            “So far so good, but how do you deal with St. Paul?” David asked.

            “As I said, there is no doubt in my mind that St. Paul considered gay sex sinful.  He was no doubt influenced by both his Jewish background and his status as an educated man in the Hellenistic world.  As a Jew, who studied the Old Testament under the great teacher Gamaliel, he would have been familiar with the prohibitions in the book of Leviticus, and also the interpretation of the story of Sodom current at the time, which placed much more emphasis on the sexual, that is, homosexual, aspects of the story than modern scholars think was originally intended.  St. Paul was also educated in the international culture of the Hellenistic world, which, in this context, means the Stoic philosophy.  There were other philosophies current at the time, of course, but St. Paul would have had little appreciation for Epicureanism, for example, or Skepticism.  The Stoics held that physical pleasure was a distraction from the higher intellectual pursuits, and therefore unnatural for the human male, whose basic natural characteristic was reason.  They therefore held that sex should be engaged in only for the continuation of the species.  Therefore, any sexual activity which did not have as a possible outcome the engendering of new life was “unnatural.”  This teaching would have reinforced St. Paul’s inclinations from his Jewish background, and he knew of no reason to question this outlook.

            “Remember, until quite recently, it was assumed by just about everyone that all humans were by nature heterosexual.  It is this assumption which allowed churchmen for centuries to label gay sex “unnatural.”  The vast majority of mankind are heterosexual, or slightly bisexual leaning in the heterosexual direction.  It was a matter of common sense, based on observation and experience.  As long as that assumption was unchallenged, it made perfect sense to label gay sex as unnatural and therefore sinful.  Someone who is by nature heterosexual but who engages in gay sex is obviously acting against his own nature, and simply seeking cheap thrills without regard to morality.

            “But within the past century there has been increasing evidence that some people are naturally attracted to others of the same sex.  I did a paper for Biology on this last semester.  It’s not quite certain whether this is purely genetic, or based on some other factors, but it’s biological, that is, it’s natural.  It’s not a choice.  Now, in Catholic theology, at least, sin resides in the will.  Essentially, sin means making bad choices.  It means choosing something else over God.  But if gay orientation is not a choice, then there is no sin,” Bryce expounded.

            “What about gay sex?” he continued.  “Even the Catholic hierarchy have accepted the facts of science to the extent of granting, however grudgingly, that gay orientation is not a sin, but they still insist that gay sex is a sin.  Well, of course, a specific sexual act is a choice, unless you’re being raped.  That’s where reason and common sense come in.  I think it is unreasonable to assume that all homosexual persons are intended by God to lead sexless lives.  It just doesn’t compute.  In my opinion, only a bunch of celibates whose minds are already made up could have come to that conclusion.  So, I feel free in my own conscience to say they are mistaken.

            “The Church has always admitted the role of human reason in understanding the will of God.  Even St. Paul represents a rational effort to understand how the basic teachings of Jesus are to be applied to everyday life.  There’s St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Thomas Aquinas, and on and on.  Interestingly enough, in each case, these Doctors of the Church had something to say which was later rejected, either dogmatically by a general council or an infallible declaration by a pope, or at least canonically in the practice of the Church.  None of them were, or claimed to be, infallible, but they all attempted to use reason to understand what God’s will, as revealed by Jesus, was for us under specific circumstances.

            “So, to more directly answer your question, I think St. Paul said what he said based on the best knowledge available at the time he wrote, but that has to be interpreted today, based on new knowledge derived from science, about the nature of human sexuality.  Cardinal John Henry Newman, in his essay entitled “On the Development of Christian Doctrine,” published in 1844, the year before his conversion to Rome, says that God allows us to understand certain aspects of the essential Christian truth only when we humans are prepared to accept them.  I think the matter of homosexuality is one such instance, and I fully expect my Church to come around to accept the idea that gay sex, lovingly engaged in, can be as holy and Christian as straight sex.  I just wish they would hurry up about it.”

            “So, you’re telling me I must either accept the Catholic Church or abandon Christianity?” David stated, wanting to be sure he understood Bryce’s argument.

            “Well, no.  There are people who are obviously sincere, who are gay and Christian, and not Catholic.  I just don’t understand how they manage it, intellectually speaking,” Bryce admitted.  “If there is neither the institutional Church nor sola scriptura, I don’t know what they base their teachings on.”

            “Reason?” David suggested.

            “In that case, it seems to me, they are not Christians, but Deists who accept Jesus, along with a lot of other teachers, as moral guides,” Bryce replied.  “That’s not what I understand as the Christian religion.”

            “Conscience?” David tried again.

            “Conscience needs to be trained, and separated from sound doctrine is totally unreliable.  All you have to do is look at history to prove that.  Over and over people have convinced themselves that whatever served their needs or wants is morally acceptable.  Conscience did not prevent slavery, or the Inquisition, or the religious wars, or the Holocaust, or any number of other atrocities.  An untrained conscience is no better than no authority at all,” Bryce declared.

            “So, where does that leave us?” David hesitantly asked.

            “In deep doo-doo,” Bryce responded.