Political correctness may be useful after all

I was reminded recently of a business gathering where I violated the corporate sensitivity rules. It wasn't on purpose; I was at a table with several men, and I said something that assumed each man at the table was either married to a woman, or would some day be married to one. It wasn't derogatory, or in any way sexual or otherwise off color, it was simply a statement that carried with it the embedded assumption that each of us had, or would have, a wife.

Someone took me aside later to explain that I had made one of my table fellows uncomfortable. "He's gay," this person explained. "You made him feel uncomfortable, the way you mentioned wives several times."

My immediate reaction was to cringe, for two reasons. The first was a consequence of the conditioning we all go through any more in a large organization, a form of Alice in Wonderland meets Judge Judy, which is designed to keep the Permanently Aggrieved from grieving anyone with deep pockets by way of a lawsuit. It is syncretism run amok, an intellectual and emotional hijacking to which we acquiesce if we want to be accepted in our workplace or school.

The second reason I cringed was because I felt terrible that something I said had wounded this person. He's a nice guy. He's always willing to help someone, a solid thinker, eager to contribute to the organization. I was worried that this ordinarily innocent thing I said had somehow left him with the impression that I valued him less as a human being.

That still worries me. At the same time, on reflection, I realize that part of the wound he felt -- if he felt one at all -- is the consequence of choosing a perverse path. Whether it's 99 percent choice or 99 percent genetics, to embrace a homosexual life is to reject the natural order. Humans -- pagans and God's people alike -- overwhelmingly mate with those of the opposite sex. In choosing to procreate we emulate God by establishing interpersonal communion through creation of life. This is the natural and spiritual order, the path of life, and to turn away from it is to choose a path of death.

Those are hard truths, and yet someone's suffering is no less abated, in the long run, by pretending they don't exist. He might have felt more comfortable, but in the end he would be no more fulfilled, had I substituted the politically correct phraseology of "partner."

At the same time, I wonder if I closed a door that more sensitivity might have left open. I have another friend whose ministry brings healing to men who have been immersed in homosexuality. Healing is the word he prefers, and I think he's right. All of us have potential healing, not through our own power or wisdom, but by virtue of the grace and truth that have been poured out over us. It is a dangerous and deadly thing to water it down. But sometimes I wonder if my beliefs about the perversity of someone's life choices are unconsciously transformed into a subtle but discernible contempt for the person himself. In assuming that everyone is "normal" like me, have I allowed arrogance to creep in, shutting out the very people around me who desperately need healing?

What I said was harmless on the face of it, but I wonder if it did harm nonetheless. Not everything that is true needs to be said all at once, after all.