Despite being a Christian, I'm not a Catholic. For several very good reasons. Now I have another one.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. And saddened. And horrified. And downright blasphemous; to whit - what the fuck is such a backward, twisted, homophobic, bigoted, insane asshat doing in charge of one of the largest religious communities on the planet???
Ok, firstly the Biblical prohibition against homosexuality is confined to (and correct me if I'm wrong) about 3 mentions total. All Old Testament. I don't believe Jesus said a thing about it. However, He did say an awful lot about discrimination - essentially that it's wrong, don't do it guys, please. The message Love Thy Neighbour is all through the Bible, it's the second most important Commandment that Christians are supposed to believe in (the first being Love God). I don't remember there being a caveat; Love thy Neighbour (but only if he's a straight white male...).
The only thing I can do now is hope to God that the bill is too far through the process of being passed that there's not a damn thing that can be done to stop it.
Alex, the whole homosexuality in the Bible thing is a little more complex than that - or less complex, depending on how you look at it. Paul specifically mentions it a couple of time, and it's not nearly as small a detail as many people try to say.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the Bible also has a whole lot to say about women shutting up and sitting down, slaves obeying their masters, not wearing clothes made of multiple fibres and lots of other nonsense. It's a religious text, that, while brilliant in a whole lot of ways, is also at times racist, homophobic and bigoted. It's really tough to deal with that, and about the only way I can handle it is to remember that God is none of those things.
The Pope's an idiot. Getting worked up about what he says unfortunately won't do any good - he hasn't changed his breakfast cereal since 1979 let alone any of his opinions.
Now, if you'll excuse me, he's probably already set the Illuminati on me.
It's that whole papal infallability thing - one Pope ages ago decided that Rice Crispies were the major deal, and this Pope can't go back on that now, so he's stuck with them. :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though; I appreciate being corrected about the Biblical references, and am more than happy to admit I'm wrong on that. I think that what I was trying to say is that any prohibitions against homosexuality/ not being kosher/ whatever are always secondary (if not tertiary) to the main message of Jesus, which was about tolerance and loving one another, no matter what/who they are. I have no truck whatsoever with anyone who thinks that they can violate the primary teachings of Jesus in order to enforce something that is given vastly less weight scripturaly.