Can the Catholic Church be prosecuted for inciting hatred against gays?

[Pert_UK]

I just checked my watch, and I'm PRETTY sure that it's the year 2003, although it's only a cheap one and may have stopped some time during the 14th Century...

"The Vatican yesterday urged Catholic politicians to actively campaign against legalising gay marriages which it said were evil, deviant and posed a grave threat to society...

'Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law,' it said, adding: 'Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour ... but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.'

The papal note says people extending cohabitation rights "need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil".

The guidelines, which were issued by the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also described gay sex as inhuman and gay couples adopting children as "doing violence". "

RIGHT......now correct me if I'm wrong, but if the head of a big company, union or main political party said this, then there would be calls for their resignation and potential prosecution for inciting hatred.

Secondly, if the Catholic Church genuinely believes homosexuality to be evil, surely they cannot talk about "tolerating evil" - if it's evil then they should be prepared to do something about it...perhaps rounding up homosexuals into camps and "re-educating" them with the aid of surgery, drugs, ECT, hot irons and (if needs be) gas ovens.

Unbelievable. I cannot begin to tell you how angry this has made me - what is fucking wrong with these people??? Love is a deviant, violent crime now???????

Full story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,12592,1010329,00.html

[Christian73]

1. As a recovering Catholic...

I have to say that the Catholic Church is trying very hard to maintain power in the US. It's base is falling apart as fewer and fewer people pay it any attention. My grandmother's generation got a lot from the Church and still attend Mass. Spiritually, I guess, I'm still a Catholic but I can't have any truck with the institutional church.

I think the Church is panicking because young people are not interested and see it as anachronistic and irrelevant. Those young people who are interested or feel a need for religion are joining the Christian fundies it seems to me.

[incontrovertible]

2. Uh

Maybe in the U.K.

Likely in the Netherlands.

Not in the U.S.

First Amendment.

It's a feature, not a bug.