Ah yes. The way to make any sort of oppression seem like you're really trying to be a helpful, considerate Christian. You're doing it for their own good.

I remember reading about how some thought black people, or women even, needed to be beaten for their own good.

And heretics needed to be burned at the stake to save their souls.

I don't think it's about trying to be helpful, and I think it's a far cry from beatings or stakings. I think that the concept of homosexuality as an *identity* is a fairly modern invention, and as such, presents a very confusing theological construct. It, along with much of modernity, presents challenges to the concept of procreation as a necessity for social cohesion.

A challenge which began from within the church, since they have made priests celibate.

Nobody's going to read this in context, alas. But thank you for posting this quote.

I'm not reading it in context, either: I found the snippet in USA Today. Although, I did follow up with reading the 1986 letter, On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.