What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, November 29, 2005

   FIGHTING WORDS

After months of rumour and speculation, Pope Benedict has finally decreed that anyone who "supports gay culture" or possesses "homosexual tendencies" is unfit for the priesthood. I look forward to seeing how they test that, while knowing that all this ban will accomplish is to drive away honest, mature, celibate gay men in favour of lying, self-loathing closet cases and the sickening paedophiles uninterested in adult men and therefore 'not gay'. Nice job, hero.

All this would be sad enough if the new Inquisition had just stopped right there but no -- an accompanying article in the Vatican newspaper pushes the witchhunt further:

"During these past years, homosexuality has become a phenomenon that is always increasingly worrying and in many countries is considered a quality that is normal. It does not represent a social value and even less so a moral virtue that could add to the civilization of sexuality. It could even be seen as a destabilizing reality for people and for society."

Excuse me? Living as we do in a time of jihad, I would quietly submit that religion is doing more to destabilize society that anything else but that view tends to make me unpopular.

No, I'll stick to the specifics of the argument, notably the disgusting assertion that gay people have 'no social value.' Is it possible for me to be any more offended by this? Maybe, if it weren't so laughably false. Off the top of my head, I've slapped together a quick list of gay men whose 'social value' I leave you to consider for yourselves:

* Australian High Court Judge, the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby, "Australian of the Year 2006"

* Doug Jefferies, owner of a Washington DC gym and leader of a group of 21 volunteers who travelled to tsunami-devastated Sri Lanka in August to rebuild homes with Habitat for Humanity

* Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Brian Paddick, lead investigator following the July 2005 terrorist bombing in London

* Elton John, pop music legend whose charity foundation has raised over $60 million dollars in the last decade to help fight HIV/AIDS

* The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the New York City Fire Department chaplain who died at the World Trade Centre, September 11 2001

Need I go on? The Church seems to think so.