The historical response to homosexuals seeking advice from the church on how to live a ethical life, has been a call to celibacy. People who found this admonishment to hard to live by, were left in a moral vacuum. Today theology are starting to probe into the question on what the Bible really do say about homosexuality, the theories on sexual ethics for gay people are also developing.

• The catechism of the Catholic Church explains that homosexuals are called to chastity.

• A very thorough Christian reasoning behind gay celibacy is made in this article by the theologian Ron Belgau.

• There are several web sited that discusses the positive aspects of the celibate life, for example this one at monachos.net.

• Dignity, a Catholic GLBT organization, has released a report about gay christian sexual ethics, named “Sexual Ethics - Experience, Growth, Challenge”.

• The Lesbian and Gay Clergy Consultation Group has released this report on on sexual ethics for L/G Clergy, questioning if there should be any difference in sexual ethics for homo- or heterosexuals, concluding that sex in itself is morally neutral and that other guidelines only apply, like honesty, respect etc.

• In his book The Ethics of Sex: A Call to the Gay Community, theologian David Helminiak argues that the same Christian sexual ethics applies to homosexuals as heterosexuals.

• BeliefNet has a message-board where believers discuss Christian sexual ethics.

• This article at Religion Online dicusses carefully what the sexual vocation of a homosexual person might be.

• In the book “Is Gay Good? Ethics, Theology and Homosexuality”, W. Dwight Oberholtzer argues that the sexual ethics should be the same for people of any sexual orientation, i.e. a faithful, monogamous relationship.

If you know about other interesting websites about this question, please give me a tip, and I’ll put the resource on this page.

INDICATIONS FROM THE INVESTIGATION

Apart from the obvious ethical guideline that you shouldn’t infect other people with your STDs, the current ethics on gay sexual behaviour seems to be divided into three different groups. The first group say that the only ethical way for a gay person to live sexually is in chastity. The second group of opinions say that gay people can live morally right in a committed, faithful relationship. The third group’s opinion is that the most important thing is loving another as thyself, and that sex is OK as long as it doesn’t invalidate the golden rule.  The investigation notes that all these three sets of opinions reflects similar opinions about heterosexual ethics. For instance do the first opinion complement the view that sex should only be inside of marriage, and as homosexuals cannot marry sex is not right for them, and so on.

The work on sexual ethics is still going on within several christian churches. However the investigation concludes that the answer to the question is that all believe that the same sexual ethics apply to all sexual orientations, if the living out of these orientations in themselves are found to be permissible.

INVESTIGATION STATUS

Question solved.