Robert Reich is in error.[1] Western civilization, in the sense coined by Charles Eliot Norton, has always (seemingly until the last few decades) linked sodomy and usury – and condemned both unequivocally.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle gives an argument "that usury was similar to unnatural sex [see Politics 1.10.1258b]... Thomas Aquinas ...argued that sodomy and usury were both 'sins against nature, in which the very order of nature is violated, an injury done to God himself, who sets nature in order.' Echoing Aquinas, Dante placed sodomites and usurers in the same circle of Hell [circle 7] in The Divine Comedy [Inferno, cantos 15-17]. In his 1935 tract 'Social Credit,' Ezra Pound ...argued that 'usury and sodomy, the Church condemned as a pair, to one hell, the same for one reason, namely that they are both against natural increase.'"[2]
The moral crisis of unrestricted greed is very real, but – contra Reich – it has much in common with "gay marriage" and abortion.
Greed-driven, predatory business practices are unnatural practices that seek profit at the expense of human lives, just as sodomy and abortion are unnatural practices that variously seek pleasure or economic advancement at the expense of human reproduction (and, thus, at the expense of actual or potential lives).
Sodomy opposes or obstructs familial, procreative increase; usury hinders natural, economic increase by – as Aristotle put it – having sterile money “breed” more money, without being tethered to productive labor.
Thus, the undercurrent of similarity – ignored by or unknown to Reich – is natural fruitfulness. This has been a Western staple since Genesis 1:22.[3]
[1] I am taking it for granted that the quotation is properly ascribed to Reich.
[2] Jeet Heer, Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays & Profiles, Erin, Ontario: Porcupine's Quill, 2014, pp. 19-20; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=AyJgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20>.
Similar statements linking sodomy and usury can be marshaled from Philo of Alexandria and Sts. Augustine and Chrysostom, among many others. (See David Hawkes, "Sodomy, Usury and the Narrative of Shakespeare's Sonnets," Renaissance Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, Sept., 2000, p. 347, <http://www.li.suu.edu/library/circulation/Tvordi/engl3230jtSodomyUsuryNarrativeShakespFall04.pdf>.)
[3] I wish to thank Michael Hoffman. It is because of his work that I was made aware of the historic Western association of sodomy and usury. See, e.g., his book Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin That Was and Now Is Not, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: Independent History and Research, 2012.
