Winters: Are Gay Priests the Problem?

Commenting at Off the Record on an article by Michael Sean Winters, "Diogenes" uses an example of local interest to illustrate a point.

Both advocates and opponents of gay priests are forced to tag our evidential specimens with cryptonyms -- e.g., "Father X" -- because even though everyone might know Father X's sexual propensities, it is deemed bad form to attach the "gay" label to him before he attaches it to himself. In terms of polemic, this etiquette is a two-edged sword. Pro-gays (like the cryptonymous Gerard Thomas) complain that the debate is stilted because the clergy publicly known to be gay are only those who have fallen afoul of the police. This is a fair point. But we Contras can retort with equal justice that the Non-Revelation Pact knocks the best counter-evidence out of our hands as well. We had to keep mum for twenty-five years about Rembert Weakland's internationally infamous appetites and play along with the fatuous pretense that his acts of ecclesial sabotage proceeded from disinterested motives. Only when a jealous rent boy told his story on Good Morning America was it fair game to connect the doctrinal-libidinal dots -- and by that time Weakland was safely out of action.