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One of these things is very much not like the other, as pedophilia isn't a behavior. One can avoid being a public masturbator by not masturbating in public. One can avoid being a sadistic murderer by not murdering anyone. How does one avoid being a pedophile? Not molesting a child is not sufficient. Not interacting at all with children is not sufficient. Engaging in sex you don't particularly enjoy with adults is not sufficient. Avoiding sex altogether is not sufficient. Saying "I was born this way and I can't change!" is a call for recognizing that it goes a lot deeper than simply "don't have sex with kids" and affects a lot of things that aren't necessarily obvious to people who only think of pedophilia in the context of child rape.
It's not clear to me whether we do or not.
There's an important difference between acceptance of gay people and acceptance of gay relationships, and similarly between acceptance of pedophiles and acceptance of sexual relationships between adults and children. Being outed as gay often meant losing your job, losing your social network, being subject to harassment or assault, etc, even if you didn't participate in gay relationships. Being outed as a pedophile (EDIT:)
hascan have similar repercussions even if you are never sexually involved with a child. The core of the Born This Way argument is that these desires are both immutable and not the result of a conscious choice, which I think is a very strong argument that they shouldn't have to hide those feelings simply to participate in society without being subject to such social sanction. The only way I think you can argue it was "never anywhere near the strongest argument for gay liberation" is if you restrict gay liberation to tolerance of openly gay relationships, which I agree it is not really relevant to, and ignore everything else it fights/fought for.Yes, normalizing "doing gay things" is one of the goals of the movement, but not the only one. I distinguished that from acceptance as gay people for two reasons. First, Western society was significantly more openly hostile to even celibate gay people when the Born This Way narrative became popular, which I think is important historical context to consider when evaluating its efficacy. Second, getting back to pedophilia, it is rather common for pedophiles to not actually care much about engaging in sexual relations with children but who still want to be able to participate somewhat normally in society without having to hide that they have those feelings, making the distinction between acceptance as people and acceptance of relationships a bit more pronounced in that case.
This is a complex topic that I don't know that I can do justice to. The ideal that you refer to here is as you note only part of what they want and other aspects of the Church's teachings are incompatible with their desires. It is also unfortunately not always reflected in the actions of the faithful. For a little more detailed exploration of the topic, I'll refer you to an old discussion at r/theschism, particularly the long back and forth between /u/UAnchovy and /u/callmejay.
I think I'm going to have to bow out of this conversation. It is a bit unsatisfying to end it without having been able to clarify what I meant, but this is getting too close to negative childhood experiences with the Catholic Church (to be clear, NOT relating to clergy abuse) for me to continue. Thank you for taking the time to clarify your position. I'm sorry I couldn't reciprocate.
There was no grief. The problem is merely one of not being able to organize my thoughts well enough and keep them organized long enough to write coherently. The more I tried to focus on the topic to better describe it, the more chaotic and fragmented my thoughts became.
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