Homosexual Inclinations and the Passions: A Thomistic Theory of the Psychogenesis of Same-Sex Attraction Disorder

Abstract

The Catholic Church has held that every human being is a child of God, and every person deserves to be treated with dignity and love regardless of their actions. The phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” is a simple summary of the approach the Church takes to loving all human beings. The Church has also held firmly that both homosexual acts and homosexual inclinations are disordered, although the origins or contributing factors of homosexual inclinations are not entirely understood. In this paper, I apply principles from St. Thomas Aquinas's treatise on the passions to show that habitual mis-identification of the cause of pleasure associated with the apprehension of beauty, or misjudgments, may be involved in the psychogenesis of same-sex attraction disorder.