Paul Scalia – yes, his son – is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Courage apostolate and a wingnut fundamentalist. Scalia is, predictably, a staunch opponent of gay rights, and has argued at length that critics of homosexuality are currently being silenced and mistreated because people do not act the way such critics demand that they should act. Scalia does think, however, that it is unfortunate that his fellow critics occasionally lapse into using the expression “homosexual person” since according to Scalia, those people do not exist: “We should not predicate ‘homosexual’ of any person. That does a disservice to the dignity of the human person by collapsing personhood into sexual inclinations.” Nor is sexuality in general a matter of “orientation”, unless it is an orientation toward “the union of marriage”.
Courage International is the reparative therapy apostolate of the Catholic Church; it is, in other words, the whole business principle of Scalia’s organization that being gay “is not an immutable characteristic or identity,” as he puts it. Courage also operates Encourage, a support group for friends and family members who can’t cope with the thought of there being gay and lesbian Catholics.
Diagnosis: Yes, one of the baddies. Not surprisingly. And while Courage is less famous than, say, Exodus International used to be, they remain determined to cause real, tangible harm to real people.