“As I first stepped out of the closet in the 1990s, I made a conscious decision to ignore natural law. Once I made that choice, I could not stop. Untethered from natural law, I could not draw a line regarding my behavior, nor could I justify making any sort of judgment regarding the behaviors of others.”

“If the hearts fit, the parts fit.” These words were emblazoned on t-shirts during Washington, DC’s gay pride celebration several years ago.

Back then I thought: “What a great message! It’s so simple, even out of touch conservative straights will finally be able to ‘get it.’” I was so taken with the slogan that I spread the shirt out on a table, snapped a picture, and sent it around to friends.

Since then, the gay world and I have gone in opposite directions. Now, my instant embrace of this slogan troubles me, because it was based purely on feeling and sophistry. It made great sense, and it seemed inspiring, as long as I didn’t stop to think about it.

However, once I did begin to think about what I was doing and where my life was headed, I eventually came to the conclusion that I had committed a grave injustice against my kids by divorcing my wife and attempting to create a family with another man. They deserved to be raised by both their mom and dad under the same roof. Who was I to deny them this most basic of children’s rights? I became determined to find a way to bring our family back together for the sake of our kids as they finished out their high school years.

Right Reason Leads to Right Actions

Once I began thinking, reasoning, and examining my life, an extraordinary thing happened: I couldn’t stop. For instance, at first I was willing to own up to the fact that I had hurt our children through our divorce and concluded that I needed to repair that wrongdoing. But hadn’t a grave injustice also been inflicted on my wife? Against our families and friends who had always supported us?

Where and when should I draw the line with reason? With examining my conscience? With looking at the facts and making decisions based not simply on what I want or what I think is good for me, but based on absolute truths? My thoughts needed to result in actions. Eventually, I chose to lead a chaste life. In view of the facts, in view of the constant testimony of nature all around me, it was the only reasonable thing to do.

Reason led me to acknowledge natural law, which led me to begin rejecting some of my former ways of thinking and acting. Reason alone was enough to lead me to change the direction of my life. Then quite amazingly, natural law and reason working together led me to recognize and acknowledge God’s existence. And once I acknowledged God’s existence, again there was only one reasonable thing to do: I asked Jesus Christ to take the throne of my life, and I began to reject the emptiness of my self-centered ways.

In the end, I returned to full communion with the Catholic Church, but my choice to remain faithful to my wife predated my embrace of faith by a full two years. Although I had only hoped for peaceful coexistence with my then ex-wife as we agreed to join forces for a few years for the sake of the kids, I was met with another wonderful surprise. We found our relationship repairing itself day by day, and our love rekindled. And while our kids are now long past high school age, there’s no question about the future of our marriage: ’Til death do us part.

The true ideas I embraced had positive consequences in my life. When I look back on my earlier life, I see the converse is also true. As I first stepped out of the closet in the 1990s, I made a conscious decision to ignore natural law. Once I made that choice, I could not stop. Untethered from natural law, I could not draw a line regarding my behavior, nor could I justify making any sort of judgment regarding the behaviors of others. Should I condemn lending my tacit approval to the prostitution of young men and women and reject viewing pornography? Why? Should gay couples invite a third man into their bed? Sure, why not? Should gay partners who declare themselves monogamous be okay with having casual sexual encounters with other men? Sure! Committed throuples? Why not? Public nudity, group sex, sex in public? Who was I to judge?

As I observe the deteriorating trajectory of this nation’s judicial system, I am reminded of my own past. It’s hard to predict if and where our judges might draw the line on marriage and gender issues. They have rejected the solid foundation of natural law, leaving the whole house rickety and unsound, vulnerable to the slightest wind of political correctness or sophistry. And just as with the poor decisions I once made, children will be collateral damage, bearing the unintended negative consequences.

Truth Comes Out

Interestingly, that slogan—If the hearts fit, the parts fit—does far more to discredit than it does to promote the same-sex marriage cause. It accidentally calls attention to the very reason that genderless relationships cannot be called marriages, even as it lures us into pretending that complementarity is an irrelevant, outdated component of human relationships and existence.

We are all now expected to pretend that natural law does not exist, that complementarity and gender are nothing more than outdated social constructs. Yet the beauty of nature and our own internal faculties of reason and conscience testify to their supreme significance.

As a child, I experienced the stirrings of same-sex attraction. As a teenager, the urges grew stronger and stronger. Yet even from a very young age, I inwardly sensed something was not quite right. I knew that somehow I was different and felt apart from others—the universal experience of almost every self-identified gay or lesbian. Nowadays, it’s nearly unanimously agreed that this experience comes from society’s heteronormativity. We are told that exterior cultural pressures cause same-sex attracted young people to feel “different,” resulting in depression or behavioral problems.

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