I am not a fan of Christmas - and after reading the comments made by pope benedick (spelling intentional) I am even more resolved to get any thought of celebrating christianity out of my life.
OK I expect a pope to maintain the catholic church's unfounded discriminatiuon against homosexuality and transsexuality, but what was said on December 22nd went well beyond maintaining a bigoted view - this pope is now entering the realm of "Incitement to Hatred" and ironically at a time when the general christian message is about good will and love.
At GenderShift we spend much of our time helping to repair the damage caused by the behaviour and attitudes of bigoted christians. Don't misunderstand me, my life is strongly influenced by the teachings of Jesus and other great teachers but I do have a problem with the catholic church and evangelical churches in particular who seem to ignore those teachings relying instead on twisted interpretations of poorly translated writings from the distant past.
Just incase you missed the popes comments, he said in his christmas speech on Monday that "saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction." and that "[the Church] should protect man from the destruction of himself." He also said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to "understand the intended roles of man and woman" and compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work".
Wow! Imaging after that message how devout catholics might respond to their young children this christmas if they express any atypical gender behaviour. This almost makes child abuse "the work of god" if it is now to be seen as "saving the planet from the destruction of God's work." This is also reinforcing gender stereotypes and trying to undo half a century of progress.
Fortunately looking at the comments across the internet, there seems to be little public support for this and there are attempts by church leaders at damage limitation, but with the Single Equality Act due next year, I for one will be lobbying hard to ensure that faith groups generally do not secure any further rights to discriminate against us, and that those they have are removed as soon as possible.
We will of course be on the lookout over christmas for any young people finding themselves homeless or damaged because they live in a home where there are supporters of this dangerous bigot of a pope.
Perhaps pope benedict is the Anti Christ that christians have all been waiting for. We know he had connections to the Nazi's and he now seems to be inciting the ethnic cleansing of gay and transsexual people just as was done by Hitler. Did you know that 15,000 gay and transsexual people were sent to concentration camps and after the liberation the few surviving gay and trans people were then re-imprisoned by the allies because homosexuality was illegal.
You may also not know that all UK LGBT legislation in the past decade has been designed to limit the impact of EU directives and court judgments and provide exemptions to church groups, and that this was largely led by Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly - both staunch catholics.
