Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online has a new article entitled Gay Priests and Gay Marriage : What the one issue has to do with the other with some interesting insights:
After Vatican II, and in conformity with the broader cultural changes of the Sixties, the U.S. Catholic Church allowed homosexuals to enter the priesthood in increasing numbers. The homosexual orientation itself, it was stressed, was not sinful. So as long as a homosexual adhered to the very same vow of celibacy taken by his heterosexual counterpart, there was no reason to deprive him of a priestly vocation. This was a compassionate stance, and one that promised to incorporate a heretofore stigmatized minority into a venerable institution, thereby strengthening the institution itself.He has some interesting discussion on early critics of what was going on with the subversion of the priesthood. He then has some very interesting comments where even the most conservative advocates of gay marriage basically admit that it would end up subverting the fidelity aspects of traditional marriage. He goes on to say:Yet imagine that an opponent of this new openness to homosexuals in the priesthood had uttered a warning cry. Imagine that someone had said, back in the 1970s, when homosexuals were flooding into Catholic seminaries all over the U.S., that substantial numbers of gay priests, far from accepting the rule of celibacy, would deliberately flout that rule, both in theory and in practice. Suppose that someone had argued that homosexual priests would gain control of many seminaries, that many would openly "date," that many would actively cultivate an ethos of gay solidarity and promote a homosexual culture that would drive away heterosexuals - especially theologically orthodox heterosexuals - from the priesthood. Suppose this person went on to argue that, at its extreme, the growing gay subculture of the priesthood would tolerate and protect not only flagrant violations of celibacy, but even the abuse of minors. Then suppose that this person predicted eventual public exposure of the whole sordid mess, an exposure that would precipitate a crisis within the Church itself.
If this is the position on marital fidelity of the foremost conservative advocate of gay marriage, what are we to expect of the far greater number of gays who are not conservatives? The experience of the Church has clearly shown that even those gays who join the most traditional of institutions are radical enough to deliberately attempt to subvert its sexual mores. It is therefore no stretch at all to see the conscious subversion by gay priests of the rule of celibacy as foreshadowing the subversion of the traditional ethos of marital fidelity under a regime of gay marriage.
[...] Advocates of gay marriage are fond of comparing those who warn against it to racists who purveyed silly scare stories about the effects of miscegenation. But the real model for gay marriage is the priesthood scandal. Here is a case in which gay sexual culture has not been tamed by, but has instead dramatically subverted, a venerable social institution - an institution built around an ethic that is a first cousin to marital fidelity itself.