Pope likens "saving" gays to saving the rainforest

[IndianaGreen]

Pope likens "saving" gays to saving the rainforest

Mon Dec 22, 2008 1:46pm GMT

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

"(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."

The pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work."

He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKTRE4BL2FE20081222

Perhaps Obama will invite the Pope to give a second invocation.

[Turbineguy]

1. Well Mister Pope,

Like the Rainforest, you'd miss them if they were gone.

[Jamastiene]

2. Oh, dear. I really wish he hadn't.

:eyes:

[Dennis Donovan]

3. We all knew Pope Benny was a placeholder...

Hopefully, the next Pope will get their heads out of their 15th century-asses.

[Zenlitened]

4. This pope is a sickness infecting the entire world.

If he truly wants to do something good for humanity and the planet, he should take a vow of silence.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Being German, I wonder if he was thinking of pruning the forest

Pruning Forest Trees

http://www.forestry.iastate.edu/publications/PM1133.pdf

[LibDemAlways]

6. This from a man who heads a church with

a significant number of gay men serving as priests. Either the Pope is competely oblivious to the obvious or a hypocrite. Another poster pointed out that like the rain forest, he'd miss gay people if they were gone. This is especially true of the gay priests and bishops who keep the institutional church in business worldwide.

[noamnety]

7. No biggie.

Sounds like just a short two-minute speech.

:sarcasm:

[Sal Minella]

8. "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."

Whereas porking altar boys is perfectly ordinary, natural, normal behavior.

[Lost-in-FL]

9. Oh please. nt

[Deep13]

10. Huh. I would love to see whatever evidence he relies on.

Oh that's right. Religious leaders can just make shit up and call it divine will. This thinking is the height of solipsism and of callousness. Apparently, there is a thinking being who created and governs the universe in all of its mind-blowing hugeness. On one speck of dust circling an ordinary star in one of billions of galaxies, there is a race of primates. The creator cares deeply what those primates do in bed together.

The "language of creation" says that there was no creation. Evolution does not happen for any purpose or plan. Species who swap DNA have a survival advantage over ones that are not as good at it. Sexuality is an unintentional by-product of that unintentional evolutionary fact. It has no moral implications beyond general morality.

Anyway, if gays are ostracized, the R.C. Church won't have much of a priesthood left.

Let's be clear on what Ratzinger is saying. (What's with Catholics and stage names?) The very best a gay person can hope for is to live a life of loneliness and misery in order to avoid eternal damnation. What's more, god deliberately made some people gay and put that burden on them for a reason that can only be described as malice. So while most of us were placed on a level field, gay people were put on one strongly slanted in the direction of eternal torment for no apparent reason.

Ratzinger and his imaginary god are monsters who are in no position to be moralizing to the rest of us.

[nichomachus]

11. The headline is wrong -- what he really said was worse

He didn't say "saving gays." He said "saving humanity from gays."

That's a huge difference.

This puts gays in a position where they are a serious threat to humanity. It's depersonalizing and pretty much gives people permission to assault and kill gays. After all, you're saving humanity.

[MountainLaurel]

13. That's disturbing

Especially considering his affiliation with groups having rather interesting definitions of humanity.

[IndianaGreen]

16. Pope: "understand the intended roles of man and woman"

This is an incredibly misogynist statement, sort of "barefoot and pregnant" analogy.

[MountainLaurel]

18. No kidding

I wonder what he's planning for women like me who don't abide by their intended roles?

[kenny blankenship]

12. It's amazing how asshats like Warren & Panzer-pope will say on the one hand, how few gays there are

in order to diminish our importance in contexts of fairness and democracy, (no need to worry about the rights or feelings of the gays -they are only a flyspeck!) and on the other hand and with their very next breath they'll tell everyone how we gays have the power to destroy civilization, to unmake all creation, and even to pull down God and His angels from Heaven.

I wonder in which appendage or organ I am storing this fantastic power?

[Deep13]

14. I think it is your spleen.

Ratzinger must think you are some kind of comic book super-villain.

[RyanEb]

15. Well, I guess we're even...

I liken the Pope to an old man in a robe in a nursing home full of bitter old people

[racaulk]

17. This coming from the leader of a church that provides refuge to child molesters.

Yeah, I'll pay attention to what HE says.

:eyes:

[NMMNG]

19. Of course he couldn't claim fighting us was like fighting the Nazis

(as did some supporters of Proposition 8). It wouldn't go over well coming from Pope Nazi himself, so he had to make like he was on some big quest to save the world, including us (because we're in such danger from ourselves y'know). What a hero he is. :puke:

[foxfeet]

20. Considering that the entire Vatican hierarchy

probably never sees anything more "natural" than the manicured Vatican gardens, it's hysterical how they claim to be such experts on natural law. I'd personally chip in to send them all on a two week primitive camp-out in the rainforest. I'd also tell them the same thing my grandmother told me: "Get your noses out of that book and go outside!"

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. Gotta mandate strictly hetersexual procreative sex. To save the ecology.

:crazy:

[readmoreoften]

22. Stop yer relijis bigitree!!!11!!! Teh poap haz rites to free speach!!111!!! Elevens!!!