The 12-page Vatican document "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons" pretty much sums up why I, born and raised Catholic, am now an Episcopalian - I might note that I don't happen to be gay. I believe that this Vatican missive will take its place in the Church's rich pantheon of infamy and bigotry alongside the Inquisition and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Research shows that about 7% of the population of any nation, race or society is homosexual. Being gay is like being white, or black or male or female: the individual has no choice in the matter.

It is clear to me that being gay is not 'deviant behavior', as the Vatican claims: it is clear that being gay is part of nature. If nature is the revelation of God's plan, then being gay is part of that plan, no matter that small minds in the Church can't grasp that fact.

This same Church failed to grasp that people raised in other traditions have a right to live unmolested by Christian crusaders, indeed, as the French Cathars discovered, even being Catholic was not enough to protect you from Catholic swords and burning pyres. The Catholic Church's hierarchy has a history of almost never failing to be dead wrong on social issues: many of today's saints were reviled, if not martyred by the Vatican.

George W. Bush and his Republican party's long tradition of bigotry is one thing, but it shakes my faith that people dedicated to spreading the message of the example of Jesus' life can publish such prejudice: how can people dedicated to a message of love, especially to those among us who suffer most, spread such hatred?

I don't doubt for a second that somewhere, another poor kid will be tied to a fence and killed or beaten or clubbed or shot because of their sexual orientation, just like other people were once hung and burned for their skin color. And the perpetrators will have looked to this pope, and this President and their ilk for the guidance that, for them, legitimized their hideous crime of prejudice.

FInally, look at the language of the Vatican's document:

"There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family," where does God (as opposed to men - prophets and authors of the Bible) reveal His plan? This is not God's plan, this is a religious order's plan to guarantee that there are offspring that are raised in the faith. They seem to miss the point that many homosexual people have children, and that, in any case, heterosexual people bear homosexual children 7% of the time.

"Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law"; where is natural moral law delineated? I happen to think marriage is holy, but I don't think I or anyone else has the right to say who may marry. If people are naturally attracted to one another, then, that clearly, ipso facto, is natural law.

I can only hope this is the dying gasp of institutions and thinking that the mainstream is already moving beyond. The same offices once condoned slavery, and were dead wrong, as wrong as they are now...
Comments 8:56:54 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures