Last week, I wrote:
As each story [about anti-gay actions from the Catholic church] breaks, many of us wonder if there’s any depth to which the Catholic hierarchy won’t sink in order to bully LGBT people. Sadly, these days we don’t have to wait very long before the next appalling story emerges and the cycle repeats itself.
And now, right on cue, we have two of the latest episodes in the Catholic church’s ongoing war on LGBT people, courtesy of the hardworking folks at Pink News.
First, out of France: the [Catholic] Bishops’ Conference of France has decided to revive the tradition of praying for the nation’s government on August 15. A decree from King Louis XIII inaugurated the practice in 1638, but by World War II it had fallen out of use. The bishops are resurrecting it in 2012, and what are they praying for? The defeat of adoption rights for same-sex couples. From Pink News’ report:
Celebrating the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the Church prays for those whose decisions affect the economy in a time of hardship. It then asks God that those who have been elected to govern the country have a “sense of common good of society” which “outweighs special requests” they receive. Lawmakers, it hopes, will follow the “guidance of their conscience”. In opposition to the intended legalisation of gay adoption, the prayer entreaties God that children “cease to be objects of desires and conflicts of adults to fully benefit from the love of a father and a mother”. The Church also asks for “the courage to make hard choices and a better quality of life for all”.
This ugly “prayer” comes in response to a statement made last month by France’s new prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, in an address to the nation’s parliament in which he confirmed President François Hollande’s pledge that the French government will allow all couples to marry and adopt children in 2013, without discrimination.
Second, out of Scotland: a senior Catholic bishop has escalated the already toxic anti-gay rhetoric in that country by suggesting that if the Scottish government legalizes marriage equality — as it plans to do — it might as well legalize incest and polygamy, too:
Hugh Gilbert, the Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen who said he ‘loved’ gay people told the Scottish Catholic Observer: “Why is it alright for a man to marry another man, but not alright for him to marry two women? If we really want equality, why does that equality not extend to nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles?”
Reprehensible? Yes. Surprising? No. Important to call out and vociferously condemn? Absolutely.
These romanist old queens will stop at nothing to keep their “hard earned” power and privileges. They see women’s and LGBT equality as the greatest threat to their status quo.
A prayer for our time:
“O god, if there is a god and if you are listening to me,
deliver me from those men who would trample me and my rights
while deceitfully declaring their love for me and for my eternal salvation.
Expose their lies to all who hear them.
Cause their false heterosexual skin clothing to fall from their bodies
revealing their true homosexuality.
Open their eyes to the beauty of their true nature
and bring a new heart to their breasts –
a heart of compassion and love,
a heart for justice and the right.
And bring about their inner conversion so they repent of their evil ways
and become champions of righteousness and justice.”
Or as Jesus is reported to have said:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”
But does his miter match his shoes?
I am sure he, like most Roman Catholic clergy, has lovely transvestments.
In any case, no one gives a s**t what the Catholic Church in Scotland (a protestant/secular nation) says anyway.
Why do they say they ‘LOVE’ us while telling us how despicable and loathsome we are, all the time lumping us in with whatever other low and unacceptable human behaviors they can imagine? Sort of takes away that warm feeling I got when I read how he loves us.
In response to the last statement quoted in the main post, because I see LGBT discussion scoff at comparisons of LGBT relatonship rights to polygamy/incest rights: I actually do have a problem with people telling those in consciously chosen, soundly thought out, polyamorous and/or incestuous relationships, that they cannot officially mark their love with marriage the same way unions of two/unrelated people can (with strict guidelines to make sure a child can prove sufficient mental maturity, I am okay with relationships that would otherwise get tarred and feathered as pedophilia as well).
I would hope that those in the LGBT community are ethically aware enough to remember that consenting, mentally mature adults should all have the same rights, to marry those they love, and not themselves internally hold the same discriminatory notions they have to deal with, against those who are in a yet smaller minority.
And if I were at all prominent or at all vocal in the LGBT community, I would be making the point that the comparison is perfectly valid and there’s nothing wrong with either of those things between people who want to be in such relationships, not going with the commonly assumed idea that the comparison itself is flawed.
I think I speak for many of us when I say that I’m immensely thankful you’re not one of us Alex. If you want to tear up our next-of-kin laws, argue your position on its own merits instead of trying to lump us in with you.