Regarding the frilled lizard effect seen in so many photos of Papa Ratzi, where are his gay stylists who would know right away that sewing a weighted hem chain into his little cape would solve this once and for all?

Apparently he’s right about the ecology thingie—I’ve been gay in Arizona for 47 years, and apparently I am causing the long-term drought here.

I am sorry.

Ah, my favorite Catch-22 from the homophobes:  gay people are all naturally promiscuous and incapable of monogamy, so letting them get married and be monogamous would clearly go against their natures, so we can’t let them do it.  Or something.  I still don’t get how the fact that at least some gay people do settle down with one person is absolute proof that all gay people are incapable of monogamy.

Lots of straight people sleep around before they get married, too—can we ban marriage for them because they were “casually promiscuous”?

But homosexuality is incapable of natural reproduction….

Because the moment perfectly healthy ova and sperm realize that they reside in the repro tract of a gay person, they, you know, die of embarrassment thus condemning Teh Gay to a life of infertility.

“The homosexual lifestyle is inherently dangerous and destructive"Pope

Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.” GK Chesterton

Homosexuals are free to do anything they like in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Well, since the Lawrence decision, anyway.

Which I’m sure Kuhner was completely in favor of, natch.

ritualized sodomy is profoundly unhealthy

Ritualized: third-person singl., past-participle.
1.  In accordance with religious ceremony or law

While dressed in religious, or Priestly, vestments…...

Jeffrey Kuhner needs to pull his head out his ass and face reality for a change.  There is far more evidence for the destructive and harmful effects of religion than for homosexuality.  Never heard of a Gay Crusade against the hetero or a Lesbian Inquisition.  No LGBT witch hunts chasing down and burning breeders.  What is destructive to LGBT people is the rampant homophobia which constantly assails them from society at large and even creeps inside to instill self-loathing and despair.  To all the homophobes:  I’m a breeder.

sjk you beat me to it . . . what is this “ritualized” sodomy and are there candles and incense involved?

Homosexuals can’t make babies, therefore homosexuality is immoral.
Celibate men can’t make babies, therefore celibacy is immoral.
Hello kettle? This is the Pope. You’re black.

I really don’t need to get moral instructions from an elderly celibate man in a silk dress and ruby slippers who heads up an organization that protects pedophiles.
An organization so steeped in misogyny that, even though celibacy renders issues of gender irrelevant, women still can’t be ordained as priests. To be a priest, you have to be born with a penis. Once ordained, you have to spend your life pretending you don’t have one. (Given those rules, what the fuck difference does it make what genitals you have?)

The Pope can kiss my gay ass. But only if he washes out his mouth first.

“what is this “ritualized” sodomy and are there candles and incense involved? “

Well, you both beat me to it.

Does “ritualized sodomy” include solemn processionals in black robes, ominous Latin chanting, and frilly silk underwear?

Amanda -

The position of the Christofascists is very simple:

Our intolerance and bigotry in denying rights to others is a just and divinely ordained mandate.
Your intolerance of our bigotry in denying rights to others is debased and evil prejudice.

“Does “ritualized sodomy” include solemn processionals in black robes, ominous Latin chanting, and frilly silk underwear?”

That’s not what it says in the brochures. I think the undewear is leather, but it is hard to tell from the pictures. Maybe it is silk, but just not frilly.

Why do you think gay choruses are so popular? Hard to practice the chanting in the privacy of your own bedroom.

Speaking of which, if my husband and I promise to do our federal taxes in our bedroom, can having federal marriage rights be part of “free to do anything [we] like in the privacy of [our] bedrooms”?  Or does all that promiscuity mean this moron thinks our bedrooms are public spaces?

I would have to do a fair bit of googling, but I recall that same-sex attraction is common in Teh Wild, more for males than females.  So one can’t honestly call it “unnatural”.  Its certainly is no more dangerous than hetero sex.  I detest Pope Benny.

Ah yes, I’m not homophobic… I merely condemn their very nature. Make false claims about how unhealthy their lifestyle is and use foolish arguments and point out that my opinions are not, in fact, hate based or bigotry.

Are there any reputable studies showing that consensual anal sex is unhealthy?

And Ritualized Sodomy can use any color of robes from what I’ve been able to gather. Maybe I should see if any of my gay friends can shed some light on the topic.

I would have to do a fair bit of googling, but I recall that same-sex attraction is common in Teh Wild

Primate sexuality is best described, in Wilcomb Wasburn’s words, as “not merely promiscuous, but positively indiscriminate.”  Both male and female homosexual acts, adults of either sex with juveniles of either sex, masturbation, females mounting, males, and many other nonreproductive sex acts are quite normal and routine.  There does not seem to be any difference in these between the sexes.

Childlessness= helping the environment. We are depleting resources such as fossil fuel, freshwater, forests, fisheries, and arable soil at alarming rates. Some people should have children, but the more of us stop, the easier it will be to feed the next generation. So, utter FAIL to anyone claiming to give a ratzinger’s ass about the environment but whinging that gays don’t make babies.

We do not have a shortage of humans.

And the ritualized sodomy thing? I guess the Catholic Church knows all about that; they have to use some method to trick the altar boys. Normal gays, however, tend to do the sodomy without ritual.

I couldn’t read much of that trash, I wanted to scream so bad.

We do not have a shortage of humans.

No, but apparently we do have a shortage of sane and rational ones.

<blackquote>Isn’t Satan supposed to dress up evil in attractive packages?</blockquote>

The devil wears Prada.
O hai, Benadick, nice cloz.

“Heterosexuals often find that they, too, are incapable of “natural reproduction”—should their marriages and families be disbanded as well?”

What about childless heterosexual couples? How does an infertile heterosexual marriage differ from a same-sex marriage?

One big difference is that the heterosexual couple enjoys sexual complementarity, and the fullness that brings into their relationship, even if they cannot have children. Though the situation of an infertile couple is very different, there is a disturbing parallel to same-sex marriage in the situation of couples who simply choose not to have children.

Such couples are still able to have sex, the fullest physical expression of love between husband and wife. But they are doing something that profoundly disturbs the nature of the sexual act. Sexuality has two aspects: the procreative (bringing forth children) and the unitive (strengthening the union of the couple). Artificially separating the unitive from the procreative brings discord to a marriage, distorts the relationship between husband and wife, and ends up harming their unity as spouses.

Pope John Paul II explains this with what he calls the “language of the body.” He observes that in the sexual act, man and woman implicitly give themselves totally to one another. That is what their bodies are saying, both symbolically and literally. Sexual expression, by its very nature, implies total gift of self to the other. The language of the body says, “I give myself to you completely, without reservation or condition.“1 But sometimes that statement is a lie. Sometimes one or both do not give themselves completely to the other but instead use the other selfishly, as a pleasure object. Treating the other as an object is divisive rather than unitive.

There are several ways men and women can reduce one another to the status of object. Sex between couples who are not married and therefore do not bring a total commitment to their union are, in the Holy Father’s terminology, telling a lie with their bodies, because their bodies speak a language of total, unconditional, and permanent self-giving when in fact they are doing nothing of the sort. 2 In that sense, their sexual expression becomes a lie, because it misrepresents their relationship. Regardless of their feelings for each other, their sexual expression promises more than it objectively delivers.

Fornication and adultery are not the only ways couples can lie with their bodies. Married couples who are committed to exclusive, permanent, and unconditional love may also tell a lie with their bodies when they separate the procreative aspect of sex from the unitive through contraception. Here, the failure to give oneself fully is more subtle but nonetheless real. Deliberately frustrating the procreative aspect of a sexual act creates a condition that makes self-giving only partial and reduces the spouse, in some degree, to a pleasure object used for selfish purposes.

This does not mean that sex can be truly self-giving only during fertile parts of a woman’s cycle. The Church has never taught that couples must have as many children as possible. Rather, it means that interference with fertility both arises out of spousal selfishness and increases it. The Church approves natural family planning, in which couples abstain during fertile periods when they prayerfully have determined that there is a need to avoid pregnancy. In these cases the spouses are not separating the unitive and procreative aspects of a sexual act; they are simply refraining from performing the act. Similarly, sex after menopause or when suffering from other forms of infertility do not divide the unitive from the procreative. The couple’s act is still ordered toward procreation; it is simply that procreation will not occur.3

1 Mary Shivanandan, Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John 2Paul II’s Anthropology
2(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 82, 135-7.
Ibid., 118-120.
3CCC 2368.

Why is it so hard for them to realize that pederasty != homosexuality?

One big difference is that the heterosexual couple enjoys sexual complementarity, and the fullness that brings into their relationship, even if they cannot have children.

IOW, it’s magic. Shut up and stop bringing reason and logic into it. Everything is about the phallic symbolism and the primal mana of the penis going into the vagina*, even though we don’t like to talk about it and get all flustered when nasty liberals bring it up. Also shut up about oral and anal sex between M/F couples, because.**

And NFP doesn’t work, period, so it’s just another bit of intellectual dishonesty to say that you don’t have to have as many children as you physically can - you can play a bit of sophistical sleight-of-hand and pretend that it’s different since you’re playing a Russian Roulette game with your fertility. But the Church’s position is that it’s better to die in pregnancy, or of AIDS, than use a condom or a pill to prevent ovulation or fertilization - that this is a more loving thing to do to your spouse and other children.

I was raised to spout all this “theology of the body” garbage, brought up believing it over the Gospels, and did so for years. Eventually, however, the logical incoherence of it, and the moral dishonesty of the clergy’s faux-celibacy and permission to nuns in war zones to use the Pill made me see through it.

*Yes, PIV is what “sexual complementarity” means when translated out of sophistical weasel-speak and into plain English. It’s all about Tab A being in Slot B and not slot A or C, you see.

**So long as we pretend it isn’t happening, we don’t have to acknowledge that it destroys the mystical privileging of heterosexuality due to phallus worship and cleaned-up myths of male gods raining their seed down on Mother Earth…

One big difference is that the heterosexual couple enjoys sexual complementarity, and the fullness that brings into their relationship, even if they cannot have children.

So gay sex is immoral because they can’t have children, but straight sex that can’t have children is not immoral because they’re straight?  Please explain precisely why inserting an infertile penis into a vagina brings a “fullness” into a relationship that cannot exist elsewhere.

Though the situation of an infertile couple is very different, there is a disturbing parallel to same-sex marriage in the situation of couples who simply choose not to have children.

And this would be “disturbing” in that it is mandatory that couples strive to reproduce?

Such couples are still able to have sex, the fullest physical expression of love between husband and wife. But they are doing something that profoundly disturbs the nature of the sexual act.

Please explain where this “nature” is written.  You’re adopting a deonotological position; please explain how the very existence of homosexuality, concealed ovalation, recreational and non-reproductive sex fit into your ontology.

Sexuality has two aspects: the procreative (bringing forth children) and the unitive (strengthening the union of the couple). Artificially separating the unitive from the procreative brings discord to a marriage, distorts the relationship between husband and wife, and ends up harming their unity as spouses.

I see.  And a lack of restraint on reproduction doesn’t distort relationships and disrupt marriages?

Well, that’s nice for Catholics who follow the Pope’s teachings.  And what exactly does this concern for “disrupted marriages” have to do with preventing those who do not accept Catholic teachings from getting married?

One big difference is that the heterosexual couple enjoys sexual complementarity

I hate to verge on TMI, but this morning’s shower oral sex seemed pretty damned complimentary. And I don’t see how my being male would have made it any different.

And if you don’t think oral or anal sex can lead to having children, they’ve never spent month’s having straight PIV every other day, and learned how boring it is. It’s easier to get pregnant if you’re having fun.

“Isn’t Satan supposed to dress up evil in attractive packages?”

Thing is, none of the gargoyles you bring up are particularly attractive: Bush’s “Regular Guy You’d Like To Have A Beer With” schtick was such obvious bullshit from the get-go, never even mind the hideous chimp face, mean little beady pig eyes and perpetual simian leer; Ratzi looks like a ghoul and Warren is such an obvious snake oil salesman (and an especially greasy example of the type to boot!).

Pope John Paul II explains this with what he calls the “language of the body.” He observes that in the sexual act, man and woman implicitly give themselves totally to one another.

“Pope John Paul II”, “observes”, and “sexual act”, think about it!

But homosexuality is incapable of natural reproduction; its lifestyle is one that is barren and childless - and without children, there can be no future and ultimately, no hope.

Excuse me, but doesn’t that apply to celibacy as well? I know several gays who have gone forth and multiplied far more often than Bennie.

Excuse me, but doesn’t that apply to celibacy as well?

As I tell my intro to anthropology classes, celibacy is the most unnatural sexual act as it has no animal analogs.

I had a Catholic boyfriend once. He was the lousiest lay ever. Now I’m in a long-term relationship with another woman and having the best sex of my life.

Michael McGreevey, I have an answer to the common “christian” assertion that gay sex isn’t natural because ‘the parts don’t fit’ or it’s not ‘complementary’: yes, the parts do fit, and yes, it IS complementary. How do I know this? Because if the parts didn’t fit and the sex wasn’t good and complementary, gays wouldn’t have gay sex. They would try it, realize it didn’t work, and go do something else. The fact that my partner and I have gay sex at all demonstrates this fact. Q.E.D.

I don’t know what sad pathetic excuse for a sex life YOU’VE been having, but when my partner and I have sex, we’re there fully, totally, and giving ourselves to the other person, to the partnership, to love. Missing fullness and completeness? What do you think, we phone it in? Have sex from separate rooms? Put an intricately embroidered sheet between our bodies? Get back to your village; they haven’t been the same since their idiot wandered off.

That you use the words of a Nazi for spiritual guidance says a lot about you.

Pope John Paul II explains this with what he calls the “language of the body.” He observes that in the sexual act, man and woman implicitly give themselves totally to one another. That is what their bodies are saying, both symbolically and literally.

This is one man’s opinion, one man who tells us how to play the game when he’s never looked at the ball.

Mike McGreevey, I’m not going to set the Inquisition on you to force you to abjure such beliefs, but there is no reason whatsoever to expect us to agree with it.

Logicians call this petitio principii, answering one question with another, equally unprovable assertion. Your statement not only begs the question, it demands and pleads, exhorts and wheedles us to ask, “Why is homophobia so important to you that you would inflict such ponderous verbiage on us?

The term “homophobia” is often used inaccurately to describe any person who objects to homosexual behavior on either moral, psychological or medical grounds. Technically, however, the terms actually denotes a person who has a phobia—or irrational fear—of homosexuality. Principled disagreement, therefore, cannot be labeled “homophobia.”

Do you prefer homobigotry?

michael mcgreevy, you = :(

Principled disagreement, therefore, cannot be labeled “homophobia.”

Please point out the principle involved here other than homosexuals are icky?  Do not pull up that hoary Leviticus BS, unless you (and all other Christians) are willing to forsake pork, shellfish, and blended fabrics, intend to stone adulterers, masturbaters, and mouthy kids.  As the good Rabbi Yeshua al Nazarat observed, either you follow all of the law or you follow none of it.

I can speak from personal experience that the parts fit just fine, and my husband and I have plenty of complimentarity. In fact we have more than a straight couple because we BOTH have TAB A and SLOT B and the parts fit complimentarily either way. We also have other tabs and slots, but that’s a different discussion.

As far as psychology goes, we are both very different people and fit together nicely, each reinforcing our strengths and shoring up any weak areas. You know, like real people do.

The “complimentarity of the sexes” that people rave so much about ONLY matters, or only trumps everything else, if all the other differences are overlooked. It has as an implied basis the idea that, for example, all women are completely interchangeable, what with the vaginas and all. No need to look at personalities, interests, strengths, foibles, and so on. It isn’t the gay view of things that dehumanizes people, it is the Church’s. Men become penises and paychecks, women become walking wombs (the vagina, while ignored, is implied.)

If the ONLY complimentarity that matters, that is used as the sole defining criteria for relationship, is one penis, one vagina, and NOTHING else matters, then that is not the viewpoint that sees people as people.

Principled disagreement cannot be labeled as homophobia. Utter bullshit with no basis in reality, though, most certainly can. Pick up your door prize on the way out.

DrDick, the Levitical prohibition of shellfish and such was wiped out by the New Testament realization that what you eat does not defile you. (Literally, whatever enters a man cannot make him unclean; not sure why that applies to shrimp but not cock.)

However, the overlooked corollary is the New Testament statement that in Christ their is neither male nor female. That being the case, no Christian can possibly have a religious case against same sex marriage, being unable (theologically) to make the distinction, nor being able (again, theologically) to judge based on gender. Yahweh may well have made Adam and Eve, but in Christ, Amy and Steve get to join the party.

Oddly, the bigots haven’t worked that one out yet. But that’s the way things are headed. Either that, or Chrisianity joins the Druids and the Mithraists as historical oddities. Which is also the way things are headed. I wouldn’t try to guess whether honesty or bigotry wins. I have my preference, but bigotry is a strong force.

Lymis -

Also does not explain the whole stoning thing and the blended fabrics.  There is a strong tradition in Christian theology which holds that Yeshua overturned all of the Mosaic code except the Ten Commandments.  That I can accept (based on having read the entire Bible), but by his own words, either you hold to all of the law or none of it.  The clear implication of your point and this statement is that he did indeed repudiate the rest of the Mosaic code and that no Christian may refer to Leviticus for justification of their bigotries.

“Ratzi looks like a ghoul”
Or like Emperor Palpatine…

I sort of thought that the parable of the sheep and the goats pretty much established that - the ones who followed the Law but were crappy to people got sent straight to Hell, but the one who set the Law aside in favor of being decent to people went to heaven.

Nitpicking over the use of the term “homophobia”? Sheesh, how lame. Everybody understands that the word refers to a revulsion or animus towards homosexuality, and few people use it as a psychological term. Just as few people use the word “gay’ as a synonym for “jolly”.
And I have never heard anyone offer up an argument against a gay civil rights issue, or express their personal disapproval of homosexuality without demonizing, denigrating or belittling LGBT folk. I have zero expectation that I ever will.

Bill,

I’ll raise you one further. I have yet to hear an argument against civil equality and equal protections for LGBT people in the United States that WASN’T based in “christian” doctrine. At least the “gays are icky” comments I hear from (usually male) non-“christians” is typically preceded by or followed with, “But hey, I’m all for equal rights. Just because I’m not gay doesn’t mean I think people should be punished by law for it.”

really, Dev beat me to it, but who the hell is going to listen to EMPEROR PALPATINE on something relating to morality? he’s EMPEROR PALPATINE!!!

fuck him, fuck the church. there are too many other mammals that are gay for me to think being gay is “unnatural”.

also, the sex MUST INCLUDE REPRODUCTION guy? why do you want me to die? pregnancy will kill me, but i’m supposed to try for it anyway? it’s somehow better if i take that huge risk of death, even though there will also be no baby? yeah/ fuck off.

For anyone who has read their mythology, I gotta say that referring to someone as a “spiritual titan” is questionable at best. I am now beset by this horrible image of the college of cardinals doing a Chronos.

*Christendom?????* 

In a MOONIE newspaper??????

Nice to know that Michael Mcgreevey thinks that the marriages of all male paraplegics should be considered sinful.  After all, if you’re a male paraplegic, the equipment (generally) doesn’t work and PIV intercourse is impossible.  So, clearly, any man who is incapable of PIV intercourse needs to have his marriage dissolved immediately so his wife can marry someone who can spiritually fulfill her with his penis.

Michael, why do you want to break up perfectly happy marriages because you don’t like the way they’re having sex?

The funky thing about Catholic theology is that they’ve got such an integrated story going, and it all fits together all so neatly. The conservative Catholics are so enamored of their pretty theology that when their pope makes a statement that fits with the theology (homosexual marriages are barren and unfulfilling), but flatly contradicts reality (homosexuals with children and long-standing happy marriages/partnerships), they’ll go with the theology every time.

It’s the same logic that says my husband and I will love each other more if I insist on “giving all of myself” to him, including the parts that he doesn’t want.  I.e. I must give my fertility to my husband to be fulfilled in my marriage, because marriages are always made happier by giving your spouse gifts they absolutely don’t want.

The (conservative) Catholic response to this is: you must give it to him anyway, and he must learn to want it, otherwise he’s rejecting you.  Great - I’ll get right on changing both of our desires for our lives completely in order to be more fulfilled. I thought I was rather fulfilled as I was, thank you.

I’m trying to work out the logic here: sex is supposedly best when it is both procreative and unitive (for reasons that don’t seem to extend beyond Because I Said So, but we’ll put that aside for a moment.)

Some couples cannot have procreative sex, because for whatever reason their fertility is compromised.  And this is apparently sad and less than ideal, but not actually Sinful, not actually spiritually destructive.  The couples who could have procreative sex but use contraception are being spiritually destructive.

Gay couples are inherently non-procreative.  But this somehow makes them more like contracepting couples than infertile couples.  This is where it starts to really break down.  If gay couples inherently cannot have kids (in the “one person getting the other pregnant” way, obviously there are many other ways to have kids) then wouldn’t that make them more like infertile couples?  Unless you believe that gay folks could be having Spiritually Approved hetero sex if they’d only stop being selfishly deviant for a moment.

That raises the question: Do you believe that all people are somehow bisexual, and hetero couples turn out that way only because of special virtue, and gay couples because of a deliberately wicked choice?  Or are some people really inherently gay, but they should opt for celibacy or loveless sham relationships?  How does loveless hetero sex promote unity, exactly?

Even if you accept that there is something magical about putting the penis in the vagina, arguing that gay sex is therefore wrong makes no sense unless you also believe that every queer person has the option of being happily straight and we have decided against it.  Every day we wake up and go on obstinately being queer.  If people are innately queer then you might believe that it’s not as good as being straight, but you couldn’t fault people for it.  And if you believe that queerness is totally a choice and we could all just be straight if we wanted to, then you are in essence calling all those queer people who assert otherwise liars.

Option 1: you have no choice in the matter, you were just made wrong, and since you cannot attain the perfection of PIV, procreative, unitive sex you should be made miserably sexless your whole life long.

Option 2: You are a liar and you could totally be straight if you really put your mind to it, but instead you have chosen to be a deviant pervert and then lie about it to claim victim status.

Guess what?  Both options make you a bigot.

...more Catholic bashing by liberal bigots

Good points all (well, most anyways.  Every thread has to have a McGreevey to provide contrast).

First, in each species that homosexuality has been observed (and there are many), the population of homosexual couples was such a small percentage that it will not pose a serious threat to the continuation of that species, so Kuhner can drop that load of BS where it belongs.  Gay couples aren’t going to turn straight just because the law denies them the right to marry, and since our society hasn’t collapsed yet, it’s safe to say that gay marriage won’t destroy it either.

Second, gay couples can and do raise children, whether they choose to adopt, artificially inseminate, or choose a surrogate/sperm donator.  They’re capable of doing a great job too (I recall a news story where zookeepers gave two homosexual male penguins an egg to hatch and raise, and they turned out to be the best parents in the waddle http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1094977/Gay-penguins-expelled-zoo-colony-stealing-eggs-given-look-following-animal-rights-protest.html).  It’s also been proven that having gay parents does not affect your sexual orientation growing up, so mom and mom or dad and dad are not going to raise a horde of gaybabies. 

I love the whole “ritualized sodomy” comment, btw.  I was imagining oil, chanting, and some perverse pre-sodomy blessings from Richard Simmons or Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  However, I think the pope will lose quite a few men if he tells them they can’t have their anal sex anymore.  Kuhner can think it’s perverse if he likes, but I have a feeling he only objects to the gender of the butt he occasionally indulges in.

If you object to gay marriage, then your church doesn’t have to marry gay couples.  But marriage is no longer solely a religious ceremony: it is now also a civil agreement, and that aspect of marriage should be subject to the rules of separation of church and state.

The “complimentarity of the sexes” that people rave so much about ONLY matters, or only trumps everything else, if all the other differences are overlooked. It has as an implied basis the idea that, for example, all women are completely interchangeable, what with the vaginas and all. No need to look at personalities, interests, strengths, foibles, and so on.

Brilliantly said, Lymis. I never considered that aspect of the argument before.

The homosexual lifestyle is inherently dangerous and destructive.

It’s not only our inability to get each other pregnant. The fact that our relationship of five years has been monogamous, loving and mutually supportive means that we haven’t even been doing the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ properly.
I feel like such a failure!

James - failing to agree with Roman Catholic theology and discussing its failings, even vociferously, does not the same as Catholic bashing.

Funny. I haven’t seen anyone here claiming that Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to get married, that their marriages are loveless shams, that they will convert all our children to Catholicism, or that being Catholic is inherently shameful and something they need to be cured of. Yet the Pope gets to say all that about homosexuals and be strongly defended as not homosexual bashing.

yea, I agree.

The Pope and the church should be pro-homosexual sex, pro-adultery and pro-abortion, whats wrong with them..

I suspect a lot of those are probably closeted homosexuals/bisexuals themselves who believe everyone faces the same “temptations” they do, and that gay folks are merely too weak to resist it…

As I always say, if you’re straight, you don’t spend a whole lot of time fantasizing about gay sex.

If you’re having to deal with constant, intrusive fantasies about gay sex, it’s time to admit you aren’t straight, because straight people have very little trouble not thinking about gay sex all the time.  It just doesn’t really come up on the list very often.

The Pope and the church should be pro-homosexual sex, pro-adultery and pro-abortion, whats wrong with them..

So two people of the same gender in a monogamous relationship is exactly the same thing as a person who cheats on his/her spouse?

I’d say that fails Logic 101, but we’ve already seen that logic isn’t exactly your strong suit.

“that ritualized sodomy is profoundly unhealthy”

Good thing that I only have informal sodomy.

Tapetum:

I haven’t seen anyone here claiming that Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to get married, that their marriages are loveless shams, that they will convert all our children to Catholicism, or that being Catholic is inherently shameful and something they need to be cured of. Yet the Pope gets to say all that about homosexuals and be strongly defended as not homosexual bashing.

The irony, of course, is that you see quite a bit of exactly that sentiment from some of the more ... um ... “backwoods” Protestant denominations in this country and others.

How come McGreevey hasn’t been found to fail the stick test yet? He has two modes: cut and paste from Catho-fundie sources, or type out a few parroted Catho-fundie talking points and add his own questionable punctuation and grammar.

I’m envisioning him as the kind of pinhead endemic to the Northeast and Midwest who has three main interests in life: right-wing Cathoholicism, wingnut politics in generaland sports. Sends his eight kids to parochial schools, and his minivan or station wagon is covered in bumper stickers from those schools, bumper stickers fetishizing the fetus, and sports bumper stickers. Maybe a “PRAY THE ROSARY” sticker as well.

I only read the 1st paragraph of the “defense”. Life is too short.

I’m envisioning him as the kind of pinhead endemic to the Northeast and Midwest who has three main interests in life: right-wing Cathoholicism, wingnut politics in generaland sports. Sends his eight kids to parochial schools, and his minivan or station wagon is covered in bumper stickers from those schools, bumper stickers fetishizing the fetus, and sports bumper stickers. Maybe a “PRAY THE ROSARY” sticker as well.

lol too funny.  I do live in upper NY state. Four kids who go to public schools. I wish we could send them to Catholic school. I work at SUNY Oswego. Sports I play airsoft. However I love playing LOTR online. I also blessed to be marred to my wife Amanda who’s a say at home mom.

So, Michael, do you think the marriages of male paraplegics should be annulled by the state the same way gay marriages are being annulled in California?  After all, they’re incapable of the “normal” intercourse that you say is the basis for marriage.

Sexual expression, by its very nature, implies total gift of self to the other. The language of the body says, “I give myself to you completely, without reservation or condition.”

Maybe I’m having the wrong kind of sex, but I’ve NEVER, at any point, felt like I was giving myself over to the other person completely.  I’ve never had a partner tell me they were giving themselves over completely.  I retain my agency, my personhood throughout.  So does my partner.  I’ve always seen that as a GOOD thing, not a bad one.

Sex feels nice.  It’s fun. Its not magic, though.  You can have good relationships without sex, and lousy ones with it. If people could just separate sex from all the relationship/procreative baggage, all of the consternation surrounding it would slowly die out.  Of course, that would put a lot of demagogues out of work, so that’s why wankery like Mr. McGreevy’s excerpt up thread continues to be forcefed to the “faithful”. 

Such a future is in our grasp, thanks to advances in medical science and the emerging realization that women are full human beings, deserving of full human rights.  All we have to do now is find a way to ditch the demagoguery…

Ratzi is a deeply closeted gay man, can’t you tell?  The stench of his hypocrisy comes through the photos, even.  Mark Jordan PhD, a gay Catholic theologian at Emory, has written books on homosexuality and the catholic church. I highly recommend them.  He all but states that Ratzi IS a closeted gay man, as are nearly all the Roman prelates.  He must have inside knowledge, or this kind of thing is/was commonplace knowledge.

I’m not surprised by any of what I’ve read.  In this `ritualized’ dance, everyone is playing their parts perfectly.  We have the nazi pope, the indignant commentator, and even the blogger and commenters.

I hate like hell to do this but I may have to (sort-of) defend the guy with the beanie.  Firstly, we all know that Jews wear beanies, making the pope a wannabe.  That aside, it’s not so much defending the pope as pointing out the strangeness and possible inaccuracy in the statements about him.

Let’s face it - he’s the guy with the beanie.  He *has to* say stuff like that, no matter how stupid or wrong.  Like Ann Coulter, it’s almost genetic and out of conscious control.  What do you expect him to say - “Sorry everyone, we’ve been molesting children for ages and we have to not only atone for it, we have to bless homosexuality”?  It’s been interpreted as being wrong in their Big Book<tm>. 

I also disagree that the fellow is `spewing hate’ or homophobic.  He’s spewing Catholicism.  From what I’ve heard, according to their Big Book<tm>, they’re supposed to hate the sin but not the sinner.  I truly believe you can dislike or not approve of something without being hateful or phobic.  Those words are victim flashbombs that are thrown into the mix for effect.  Think about it, please. 

[DISCLAIMER: I am not Christian.  I do not agree with the Catholic church’s stance on this but they’re certainly entitled to it.  I am against gay marriage but I’m against straight marriage too - the State has no business in it.  I am for equal rights across the board.]

leftystrat,

Aristotle once stated that anger is distinguished from hate because anger is directed only at an individual, not against a class, and while it seeks the pleasure of revenge, it is not truly hate. Hatred seeks the complete annihilation of its object.

I’m not sure what you call that medieval horseshit Nazi Ratzi likes to spout, but I’m in Aristotle’s camp. Nazi Ratzi says that gays should either live loveless, sexless lives of celibacy (and presumably inject an appropriate level of ring-kissing and boot-licking), or they will burn in hell. That sounds remarkably like a wish for annihilation of a whole group of people to me.

“Stop being what you are or die and burn forever!! Ignore the fact that I supported rounding you all up and torching you along with the Jews and Gypsies!! Now bow and kiss the ring!!”

It’s been interpreted as being wrong in their Big Book<tm>.

Actually, IIRC, the Catholic Church’s stance against homosexuality isn’t based in the Bible per se.  They don’t spend a lot of time quoting chapter and verse to try and defend the stance like many Protestant denominations do.  Catholics do not accept the Bible as literally true, so much of the dogma comes from theologians and can’t be traced directly to Scripture.

Technically, until the past couple of years, the official stance of the Church was that homosexuality was not actually sinful in and of itself—the sin was in having sex outside of marriage (which of course, by the rules of the Catholic Church, could not be solemnized between two people of the same sex).  So this is actually a turn by the Pope back towards the older view of homosexuality and not the one that’s been touted for the past decade or so.

Which emphasizes for me, once again, that I was right to leave the Church.  I was raised on Vatican II, and most of the steps they’ve taken in the past 10-15 years are antithetical to what I was taught as a Catholic 25-30 years ago.  It’s sad to watch the leaders of your church change direction and reverse everything they used to teach.

McGreevey:

lol too funny.  I do live in upper NY state. Four kids who go to public schools. I wish we could send them to Catholic school. I work at SUNY Oswego. Sports I play airsoft. However I love playing LOTR online. grin I also blessed to be marred to my wife Amanda who’s a say at home mom.

So then, yes, Nobody in Particular is precisely right.

Keori:

gays should ... live loveless, sexless lives of celibacy

That’s brilliant! Now, if only there were some kind of lifestyle, some kind of institution, even, in which men were expected to live loveless, sexless lives of celibacy in service to a higher cause. Maybe one where you get to wear fabulous clothes every single day and minster to some kind of large, ideologically homogeneous community based in a building with multicolored windows, kitschy decorations, oddly-placed light fixtures, vaguely creepy back rooms, easy but monitored access to alcohol, and uncomfortable, poorly-lit seating.

All right so the ban on gay marriage is based on the fact that gays can’t make babies, so the relationship is “barren”, or some such bullshit reason that just gets tossed aside when it comes to infertile couples.
But what about someone like Lyle Menendez? He’s serving a life sentence for two murders, and ineligible for conjugal visits. Yet he’s on his SECOND marriage.
So tell me something: why does a convicted murderer rate higher than a gay couple who haven’t harmed anyone?

The thing about this: the Catholic Church doesn’t have to say anything about gay marriage. They’re the catholic church; they didn’t even say anything about the concentration camps. So when B16 goes out and affirmatively compare queers being alive to global environmental destruction, it’s because he has, um, a bug up his ass about it.

But then these are the people who can reconcile an omniscient, omnipotent deity with personal responsibility that leads to eternal torture—G*d is in control (supposedly) of every detail of your life, and knows what you’re going to do when faced with a decision to sin or not, and could rearrange the details to change the outcome with a flick of a nonexistent hyperfinger, but you’re the one who will spend the rest of eternity in boiling oil. He makes Rumsfeld and Cheney look positively compassionate.

I also disagree that the fellow is `spewing hate’ or homophobic.  He’s spewing Catholicism.

And David Duke isn’t racist, he’s just promoting white nationalism.

I truly believe you can dislike or not approve of something without being hateful or phobic.

I truly believe you can dislike gay sex without calling it a threat to human survival and civilization. Go that far, and you’re being hateful and homophobic.

Those words are victim flashbombs that are thrown into the mix for effect.  Think about it, please.

Think, yourself, before you go defending bigots and accusing anyone who recognizes homophobia of overreacting. Asshole.