Callahan calls on Church to rethink gender issues
By LINDSAY FRANK
News Writer
The Catholic Church needs to develop a more inclusive sexual ethic, said Sidney Callahan, professor of psychology at Mercy College, in her lecture Thursday night.
The Church should rethink how it deals with issues of gender differences, contraception and sexual orientation, Callahan said.
When discussing issues of gender, she emphasizes that one could be Christian while disagreeing with gender stereotypes of women as homemakers and men as being in the workforce.
"I became one of the first people to advocate Christian feminism," she said. "I didn't find that there was one specific location for women or for men. I decided Freud and Romanticism were wrong and that while gender differences do exist, you can either maximize or minimize them.
In her own experience, Callahan said that friendship, marriage and childbearing experiences had demystified gender for her.
"I discovered gender and sexuality do not solely determine a person's identity. Character is more influential," she said.
If one accepts that gender differences are minimal then there is hardly any reason why women should not be ordained, Callahan said. As these gender roles loosen, some people imagine that there is no reason to deny same sex marriages.
"I cannot agree with a ban on [female] ordination, contraception and homosexuality. I see these three issues as a tightly wrapped package supporting each other," she said. "If you agree that marriage is fruitful in non-procreative ways then you should support same sex marriages."
All News Stories for Friday, March 24, 2000
