The Roman poet Horace once said: You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

June is the traditional month for the “pride” marches of the sodomites. This June will be particularly active, owing to the fiftieth anniversary of the demonstrations at the Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village in 1969 in which the sodomites made their first attempt at public acceptance.

But is this appetite for unnatural sex acts something to be proud of? Is it something to be celebrated and admired by all?

Everyone knows that sodomitic sex acts are contrary to nature. Even the most perfunctory examination of the physiology of the sex organs and their functions tells any intellectually honest person that they are meant for reproduction. The obvious conclusion is that to use them for any purpose other than reproduction is contrary to nature.

The Left argues pleasure. But pleasure is not against nature, they say. Response: it is against nature if it accompanies an act which is against nature. For all pleasure, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, can only be had as an accompaniment to some other act. God has enhanced certain acts with pleasure in order that the acts be accomplished. Principal among these are acts pertaining to eating, for the preservation of the individual, and acts pertaining to reproduction, for the preservation of the species.

All of this is crystal clear. It is confirmed by the fact that there is a male and female in many other aspects of life: electrical couplings, plumbing couplings, and even in audio equipment. The reason is that all reality — with the exception of God Himself — is composed of act and potency, that is, a principle which gives and a principle which receives. The human race figured this out around 350 B.C.

There are many sins against nature. Among them is artificial birth control. Another is solitary impurity. There is something special about the sin of Sodom, however, since it carries with it a particularly pertinacious revolt against the order which God has established. “Male and female He created them.” (Genesis I: 27)

There is a saying in philosophy which reads: Natura est quodammodo Deus, that is, Nature is in a certain way God. This should not be taken in a pantheistic sense, but with the meaning that God’s nature is stamped upon all creation in the form of the eternal law, which is an order which reflects His own divine nature. This order is visible everywhere, and it is what makes our lives livable. Consider the perfect order of the planets and stars, the rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, the constancy of gravity, the constancy of the characteristics and properties of the chemical elements and compounds, the marvelous order of the human body, the constancy of the composition of air throughout the whole planet, the correlation between available food and our digestive systems, the ecology of plants and animals. These are only a few of the many examples of the natural order, a reflection of God’s infinite wisdom.

The eternal law which governs all creation becomes for man what we call the natural law, that is, a code of morality which is based on nature itself. It simply means that man is bound to always act in accordance with his God-given nature. Any act, therefore, which is contrary to nature is intrinsically evil, evil by its very nature, and therefore can never be posited for any reason whatsoever. Man must accept death, if need be, in order to avoid a sin against the natural law. Among sins against the natural law are murder, stealing, lying, and all the sins against nature in the domain of sex, which are listed as four: artificial contraception, solitary sins, bestiality, and sodomy. Of these the fourth is considered to have a special malice because it such a blatant perversion of nature. For this reason it was punished very severely by God in the Old Testament.

The reason why these sexual sins against nature are so grave is that the act of reproduction for humans is an act in cooperation with God’s creative act of a human being with an immortal soul. For this reason, it is called procreation. Hence to thwart God’s plan and purpose, which is clear from nature, is to most gravely offend the divine majesty.

All these things having been said, we return to the question: Should persons who have an appetite for unnatural sex acts be proud of this appetite? Should this appetite — and its consequences in the practical order — be admired as an alternative and legitimate way of life?

The answer is clearly in the negative. An appetite is merely a habitual desire for something. Hence the morality of the desire depends on the morality of the object of desire. This is true of adultery, for example. This is why Our Lord said: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew V: 28) We know, therefore, that the desire for adultery is sinful.

Likewise the desire for sodomy is sinful. Consequently the appetite for it — whatever its cause, whether genetic or by choice — is a disorder of the sexual function and leads to a desire for something which has a special immorality, one against nature. It could be compared to having an appetite for eating or drinking something poisonous.

Should this disorder, then, be the object of pride and admiration? Should there be pride parades of adulterers? Of those afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorders? Of alcoholics? Of those suffering from schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or paranoia? Of those inclined to bestiality? Of the sadomasochists? For these are all disorders of one form or other.

Of course not. The Left, however, loves the sodomite pride parades not because they think that this appetite is normal, but because it is the ultimate way of raising the horns of defiance against God Almighty. It is precisely because this disorder is so blatantly against nature, and therefore so abhorrent to everyone, even to the most politically correct, that it is the perfect vehicle of telling God to “go to hell.” It is the ultimate act of blasphemy on the part of the cultural revolution which has its origins in the 1960’s.

Remember Horace’s quotation, that nature, even if driven out with a pitchfork, will always come back. No pride parade, not even a thousand pride parades, will ever make natural what is intrinsically unnatural, and not all the political correctness in the world will take away the nauseous feeling which comes at the thought of unnatural sex acts.

It is to be remembered that the original sin of Adam and Eve was an intellectual sin, which was to “have the knowledge of good and evil.” Put in another way, it was the devil promising man that he, man, would be the measure of morality, and not God. Consequently, far more damage is done to society by the approval and acceptance of unnatural sex acts, than by these acts themselves. For this vice has always been with the human race, but no civilization in the history of the planet has ever approved of marriages between two persons of the same sex. Even the debauched Romans frowned upon homosexual acts.

The intellectual sin, therefore, of the pride parade, the acceptance of unnatural vice, is the worst sin of all. For this reason, supposedly conservative politicians who accept these things, and even praise this disordered appetite and inclination, are sowing the seeds of the ruin of the nation. For no nation which abandons the natural law can long stand.

The attitude of the Novus Ordo. There was one Novus Ordo bishop who said something Catholic about the upcoming pride parades. Bishop Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, tweeted this:

A reminder that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ “Pride Month” events held in June. They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children.

On the other hand, a Jesuit by the name of Father James Martin, a prominent advocate of the LGBTQ agenda, tweeted this:

To all my many #LGBTQ friends, Catholic and otherwise: Happy #PrideMonth. Be proud of your God-given dignity, of the gifts God has given you, of your place in the world, and of your many contributions to the church. For you are “wonderfully made” by God (Ps 139).

The tragedy of these contrasting Novus Ordo views is the very fact that they are contrasting. Both the bishop and the Jesuit are “Catholics.” The contradiction of these statements concerning the observance of the natural law would ruin the unity of faith in the Catholic Church. It is this lack of unity of faith, one of the four marks of the Church, which is proof positive that the Novus Ordo religion is not the Catholic Faith. Even the arch-Modernist John Paul II said, on the occasion of a pride parade in Rome in 2000: “Homosexual acts go against natural law. The Church cannot silence the truth because it would not live up to its faith in God the Creator and would not help discern what is good from what is evil.” Such a statement is worthless, however, if the hierarchy does not enforce orthodoxy on this point. Indeed the repression of heresy is one way in which the Holy Ghost guides the Church. Just as our bodies expel diseases by means of antibodies in our blood, so the Church must condemn and expel heresies. Otherwise it defects from its God-given purpose, as the words of the heretic John Paul II indicate.