Over the last forty years, the “gay” revolution has sought to model itself on the civil rights movement. One aspect of the latter struggle was the need to overcome a heritage of shame for being black. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was so named because that was how black people saw themselves then. To be called “black” was somehow considered insulting. Only later, during the 1920’s under the influence of Marcus Garvey, did the term “Negro” gain ground. It became the universally accepted way of referring the African-Americans right up until the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then suddenly something changed. Having won the fight on the legal front, the movement turned to the psychic front to erase the deep-seated feelings of inferiority that were the residue of three centuries of black slavery. Promoting a positive pride in being black came to the top of the agenda. The point was not lost on those who up to that time had contented themselves with remaining in the shadows in homosexual hang-outs designed to avoid the attention of the general public. The result was the birth of a new mentality that supported such public events as “gay pride” parades. What are we to think of this phenomenon and what response should we give it?

 
Let us begin by examining the universal phenomenon of shame. The feeling of shame is meant to protect sexuality from exploitation. Small children, when they have not yet reached the point of becoming aware of sexual differences, do not experience shame at being naked. But once they are old enough to be aware of sexual differences, they immediately experience shame and desire to cover their private parts. In this way, shame helps in the process of integrating sexuality into one’s personality by fostering the virtue of modesty. This virtue trains one in how to present oneself to others as a person and not as an object of use and enjoyment.
 
Because they are divorced from the dignity of serving the handing on of new life, homosexual acts are always acts of private enjoyment. Even when they are used to give emotional support to another human being, they cannot be acts of complete self donation. For this reason, they remain shameful because they constitute a form of the prostitution of the gift of our sexuality even when this use does not involve money.
 
Shame can be overcome, but the result of doing so is to become shameless. Shamelessness is the vice of presenting oneself as an object of sexual use by others. Thus, a prostitute on the street is shameless as he or she solicits customers. The teenager who announces himself to be “gay” and then proceeds to strut his way down the halls of his high school may think that he is being courageous in emancipating himself from social mores, but he is really being shameless. He is unavoidably presenting himself as an object of use because use is at the core of the homosexual experience. The consequent need to develop a “hard shell” stems from the desire to deny the unavoidable shame involved in this kind of behavior. One does not need a “hard shell” to stand up against peer pressure. The virtue of fortitude will suffice. “Hard shells” only appear when the conduct being defended is not virtuous.
 
The promotion of “gay pride” is another way to counteract the shame of putting one’s sexuality on display as an object of consumption. Those who think that they are helping teenagers deal with their sexuality by fostering “straight/gay” alliances do them a great disservice by not distinguishing between unhealthy and healthy shame. Shame that leads to self rejection because of the presence of certain racial features is unhealthy. It stems from wanting to be someone else, not one’s unique self. It is a subtle form of pride. But shame about certain behaviors that distort the meaning of sexuality is another question. That kind of shame is a sign of a healthy personality, and any attempts to destroy it will end up stripping us of the protection that shame was meant to provide for us.