chapter 4 cahill

Divorce

Homosexuality

Prostitution

Far from a simple loosening of social controls of the body the moral question for Christian ethics of sex and gender becomes how to socialize the body – as male and female, as sexual, as parental- in ways which enlarge our social capacities for compassion toward others and solidarity in the common good. This means resistance to competing socializations, and hence resocialization, but hardly the rejection of the idea that embodied behavior will reflect a set of social values, nor even a thorough rejection of values which inform the other communities in which Christians participate.