On the air no room for dialogue.

Ever since Vatican II, Roman Catholic theologians have been encouraged to enter into a friendly dialogue with the world. In my own field of moral theology this dialogue has usually meant that when discussing ethical issues Catholic thinkers have sought above all to find common ground with their secular conversation partners. This trend reached a kind of culmination during the 1970s debate about whether or not there is a distinctively Christian ethic. The dominant position, supported by such theologians as Charles Curran and Joseph Fuchs, was that there is no distinctively Christian ethic; these writers did concede that the Christian tradition provides unique motivational sources for moral action.

I recently had an experience which has confirmed my growing skepticism about this post-Vatican II approach to dialogue with the world. I have now come to believe that for fruitful public discourse to be possible between church and world, attention to the fundamental differences of the conversation partners is a critical first step. As John Courtney Murray wrote, "disagreement is not an easy thing to reach."

Last February, in the wake of the gays-in-the-military controversy, I was invited to participate on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." The program, which aired over NPR for four days from February 8-11, was titled "Gay/Straight Dialogue" and its purpose was to discuss the role of homosexuals and lesbians in American society. The panel consisted of a lesbian activist, a homosexual author, a "straight" journalist, and myself--a moral theologian teaching at The Catholic University of America.

At the time, I supposed I had been invited to serve as a representative of the religious community. I told the producers that I felt uncomfortable in this role, and suggested they invite an additional panelist to represent the conservative or fundamentalist Protestant point of view. I made this suggestion in part for self-serving reasons: I wanted to be able to appear as a moderate "voice of reason" within the religious community, and I thought this might be easier if I were flanked by an outspoken member of the Religious Right. But I also thought it was important that this point of view be represented because it is numerically and thus politically significant.

In any event, the show's producers refused to invite such a panelist because of practical concerns about a five-member panel and because of the judgment that members of the Religious Right are not truly interested in dialogue. I told the producers I thought it strange and unfortunate that they would choose to exclude from the conversation a representative from a community which is such a significant, however irksome, participant in the public conversation about the place of homosexuals in American society. I did not suspect that by the end of the program I would discover a certain sympathy for the Christian Right.

What interests me above all about the issue of homosexuality is the kind of questions it raises for a contemporary effort to appropriate the Christian tradition; personally, I have far more questions than answers. Perhaps the most fundamental question is, what are we doing when we make love with another person? Beyond this are many specific questions about homosexuality: Is it possible to explain why a heterosexual orientation is normatively superior to a homosexual one? Are homosexual acts more "intrinsically disordered" than heterosexual contraceptive sex? If there is often no real moral choice involved in a sexual orientation is it just to require perpetual celibacy of all those who have a homosexual orientation? How is the Bible's approach to homosexual acts (and persons) to be interpreted?

I looked forward to discussing these and other questions about homosexuality because I am not fully satisfied with the answers offered by either the revisionist or traditional partisans in contemporary moral theology. On the NPR program, however, none of these questions received extended attention.

In one of the first programs, I began to stake out what I hoped would be common ground, a "staging area" for further exploration, by asking if the other panelists accepted the value of fidelity in sexual intimacy, no matter what the orientation of the partners. My lesbian conversation partner declared that she regarded sexual fidelity as an alien value which heterosexuals, especially male heterosexuals, were unjustly and oppressively seeking to impose on her. Moreover, she argued that by holding sexual promiscuity to be somehow morally inferior to fidelity, I was adopting a position which was tantamount to homophobia. Naturally I resisted her presupposition that gay people are more promiscuous than straight folk, and that therefore my position entailed an antigay prejudice. She disagreed. End of conversation.

The homosexual author made an argument which was simply positivistic: all people--gay or straight--engage in all types of sexual activity. Promiscuous sex is no better or worse than faithful sex: "it's just different," a part of being a human sexual animal. End of conversation.

The producers opened the second program with a tape recording of gay people expressing the pleasures of anonymous sex. One speaker challenged the liberal view that gay people should be tolerated because they are "just like straight people." On the contrary, the speaker argued, gay people are different. They do in fact engage more in anonymous sexual activity, and they demand to be accepted as they are, in their difference. There was also a tape of a young man who claimed his sexual experiences in bath houses were "religious," although he laughingly conceded this may be simply because he was "on his knees." As the religious panelist I was asked to comment. This time I was the one who wanted to end the conversation.

After two days of this I told the producers that I felt I had nothing to contribute to this "dialogue" and did not wish to continue on the program. But the producers had received some angry telephone calls after the previous program and said they planned to respond to the criticism. They encouraged me to express my misgivings on the air. Reluctantly, I consented.

I stated on the air that I was beginning to believe that I did not agree with the other panelists enough even to argue with them. I objected to the way religious traditions were being either ignored or belittled on the program, and I argued that what I took to be fundamental moral questions were not being addressed. As an example, I cited the moral distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior, a distinction that I presumed would be open to differing views and ought to be discussed, perhaps in the light of religious faith. But the gay and lesbian panelists took for granted the moral acceptability of both the orientation and the lifestyle, and the lesbian participant was not interested in even discussing these issues. Simply to ask questions about the normative nature of homosexual activity or orientation was taken to be offensive. The preference of my copanelists was to talk instead about the injustice of all discrimination against gay people, what its causes are, and how to stop it.

While I agreed these were serious problems, I also suggested that any dialogue about the role of homosexuals in American society must take up the biblical witness, as this source continues to form and inform the attitudes of millions of Americans. I argued that this was especially important since the Bible is such a rich text and biblical interpretation is a complex task. I wanted to counter the impression sometimes given by the Religious Right who misuse the Bible in a simplistic way to condemn homosexual persons.

My lesbian conversation partner did not believe dialogue about the Bible was possible because of its use to oppress and dehumanize gay people. Both the gay and the lesbian panelists refused to discuss the Christian or Catholic approach to homosexuality, claiming that because of religious pluralism in the United States, reference to the Christian tradition was problematic and useless. One mentioned that several American Indian religions have favorable attitudes toward homosexuality and that we should discuss those religions, not Christianity; the other claimed that religion is too divisive to be allowed into public conversation at all. End of conversation.

I have drawn a number of conclusions from my radio experience. I felt a surprising amount of anger and frustration that there was no real discussion about the connections between the Christian tradition and the moral issues raised by homosexual activity. To speak about the role of homosexuals in American society without at least discussing the Christian religious tradition is simply absurd. The alienation I experienced at the way religion was excluded from this public dialogue planted within me a subversive seed of sympathy for the attitudes of some on the Christian Right. In the future, do I want to participate in a public forum where my own deepest religious convictions and critical moral questions will not even be discussed? The whole enterprise seemed like a sham, and I felt inauthentic for participating.

Just as increasing religious pluralism is used as a justification to remove religious conviction from public discourse, our growing moral pluralism also serves to prevent substantive discussion about fundamental moral issues. For example, how to evaluate homosexual acts morally is a question I regard as indispensable. But my dialogue partner may think that even to ask this question is offensive and oppressive. I am fully aware that the gay members of the panel may have felt just as angry and frustrated as I did.

I am not claiming that there is no possibility for dialogue about substantive moral issues between people of different faiths. I am questioning the presumption that there is enough common ground among the various groups in our culture that genuine dialogue is going to take place whenever we sit down and talk to each other.

Therefore, given the limits of secular rational discourse, if one still wishes to pursue dialogue with those outside of a tradition of faith, perhaps it is important to pay attention first to what is distinctive about Christian belief. What are the questions one regards as critical or unacceptable? What sources are to be used or excluded? What presuppositions are fundamental? This will enable the dialogue partners to ascertain whether or not they share enough common ground to engage in fruitful dialogue, and on what terms.

I am left with the consolation of reading Stephen Carter's The Culture of Disbelief (Basic Books), and with the conviction that my old teacher Richard Bernstein was correct about the contemporary triumph of mere instrumental rationality: increasingly, the members of this culture do not seem to share a faith in the possibility of reasoned deliberation about the ends and norms that ought to rule our lives. Therefore I also worry about how to retain my faith in practical reason.

This experience also suggests something I believe the Gospels record as characterizing the end of Jesus' life: there is a limit to what rational conversation can achieve. It is counterintuitive to an academic like myself, and no doubt to the readers of Commonweal as well, but I have come to believe there are limits to the utility of discourse, and these limits may be growing in our current culture. In an increasing number of contexts there are times when it is more honest to remain silent, or not to show up at all.

James L. Nash teaches moral theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.