Replies

St. Thomas himself, in the second book of the Summa Theologica, says that homosexuality is natural, not unnatural. And he also says homosexuality among animals is natural, not unnatural.

I'm no expert on the Summa, but if your intuition is that Dr. Brown is on crack, you'd be correct. The following is from a review by Paul Dietrich of the book, The Invention of Sodomy in the Christian Religion from the April 1998 edition of First Things:

Jordan is clearly more comfortable when considering the works of St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas. His earlier study, Ordering Wisdom: The Hierarchy of Philosophical Discourses in Aquinas (1986), is a well-regarded contribution to the understanding of St. Thomas. For St. Albert homosexual intercourse is a sin against grace, reason, and nature. Jordan laments "Albert’s refusal to think coherently," that is, his citation of Arabic lore on most medical topics in contrast to his appeal to Christian moral teachings when it comes to homosexuality. Although Jordan rescues St. Thomas from the misreadings of other gay historians (such as John Boswell), he finds what he describes as "instabilities" in Thomas’ denunciation of sodomy as the unnameable vice that more than other sins is against nature and against God.
A close reading of several scholastic texts with an eye toward holes in the argument suffers from the same flaws as Jordan’s earlier treatment of monastic authors. Insufficient attention is paid to the historical and cultural contexts of these arguments. Why is it, asks Jordan, that so much energy is expended on denunciations of sodomy compared with the more lenient treatment of other sins in the medieval catalogue of vices, say, murder, usury, simony, or adultery?
Why, indeed. Medieval monastic and scholastic authors presumably had less pastoral experience than did the regular clergy with murder, adultery, and usury, or even with standard clerical sins such as simony, nicolaitism (clerical marriage), and concubinage. As members of male religious houses, however, Benedictine monks (like St. Peter Damian) had in common with Dominican friars (like Saints Albert and Thomas) a concern for the moral, spiritual, and psychological health of a same-sex religious community.

So Dr. Brown's understanding of St. Thomas' teaching is upside down regarding the desirability of ordaining priests with homosexual inclinations. You could knock me over with a feather.