The Pope speaks out on homosexual marriage

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-takes-anti-gay-marriage-stance-level-105918474.html

By By NICOLE WINFIELD | Associated Press – 13 hrs ago

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The pope took his opposition to gay marriage to new heights Friday, denouncing what he described as people manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices — and destroying the very "essence of the human creature" in the process.

Benedict XVI made the comments in his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican bureaucracy — one of his most important speeches of the year. He dedicated it this year to promoting family values in the face of vocal campaigns in France, the United States, Britain and elsewhere to legalize same-sex marriage.

In his remarks, Benedict quoted the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, in saying the campaign for granting gays the right to marry and adopt children was an "attack" on the traditional family made up of a father, mother and children.

"People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being," he said. "They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves."

"The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned," he said.

It was the second time in a week that Benedict has taken on the question of gay marriage, which is dividing France after proponents scored big electoral wins in the United States last month. In his recently released annual peace message, Benedict said gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, was a threat to world peace.

After the peace message was released last week, gay activists staged a small protest in St. Peter's Square.

Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," though it stresses that gays should be treated with compassion and dignity. As pope and as head of the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog before that, Benedict has been a strong enforcer of that teaching: One of the first major documents of his pontificate said men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained priests.

For the Vatican, though, the gay marriage issue goes beyond questions of homosexuality, threatening what the church considers to be the bedrock of society: a family based on a man, woman and their children.

But the Vatican's opposition has been falling on deaf ears. Under then-Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the largely Roman Catholic Spain legalized gay marriage. Earlier this month, the British government announced it will introduce a bill next year legalizing gay marriage, though it would ban the Church of England from conducting same-sex ceremonies.

In France, President Francois Hollande has said he would enact his "marriage for everyone" plan within a year of taking office last May. The text will go to parliament next month. But the country has been divided by vocal opposition from religious leaders, prime among them Bernheim, as well as some politicians and parts of rural France.

The Socialist government's plan also envisions legalizing same-sex adoptions. Benedict quoted Bernheim as denouncing that in his view, under the plan, a child is now essentially considered an object people have a right to obtain.

"When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God," Benedict said.

[scotinmass 588]

I bet the pope is against guns too but you wouldn't quote that story!

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I bet the pope is against guns too but you wouldn't quote that story!

Naw, the Pope is fine with guns. He just doesn't go for the homosexual types.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

I'm not in the Pope's fan club, but I agree with him.

If homosexuality was "normal," then humanity would not even made it to the birth of Baby Jesus. The intelligent design and the survival of the human race really requires that a man has an orgasm inside the ####### of a woman. No way around it.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I'm not in the Pope's fan club, but I agree with him.

If homosexuality was "normal," then humanity would not even made it to the birth of Baby Jesus. The intelligent design and the survival of the human race really requires that a man has an orgasm inside the ####### of a woman. No way around it.

[Ban Hammer 13,570]

it seems he doesn't know much about guns either - he's shown with a right hand firing position yet has his left eye open.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

it seems he doesn't know much about guns either - he's shown with a right hand firing position yet has his left eye open.

OK I'm glad it wasn't just me. I looked at that pic a few times and was like WTH? Then I was thinking maybe they do it different over in Europe. That does look like a nice rifle and scope though. I bet it cost a mint and then some.

[scotinmass 588]

Naw, the Pope is fine with guns. He just doesn't go for the homosexual types.

That's not the pope!

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

That's not the pope!

Correcto mundo. It's one of his Cardinals. They don't mess around at the Vatican. Swiss Guards ftw!

Edited December 22, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[scotinmass 588]

Correcto mundo. It's one of his Cardinals. They don't mess around at the Vatican. Swiss Guards ftw!

Yup they have soldiers with guns. Not civilians. The way God intended it!

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Yup they have soldiers with guns. Not civilians. The way God intended it!

Ya that's the European mentality. Europe, good for genocides and world wars.

***btw I don't think William Wallace would have approved of your message.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Darnell 8,479]

I'm all for Gay Marriage...

...In Canada..

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I bet the pope is against guns too but you wouldn't quote that story!

Indeed.

The Catholic Church's position on gun control is not easy to find; there are dozens of speeches and talks and a few documents that call for much tighter regulation of the global arms trade, but what about private gun ownership?

The answer is resoundingly clear: Firearms in the hands of civilians should be strictly limited and eventually completely eliminated.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I'm all for Gay Marriage...

...In Canada..

I'm not for gay marriage. I like to be married to my wife. But I do support the right of homosexuals to marry. Ideally, they should be able to do that anywhere in the world but certainly, they should be able to do that in the developed world. In many part they already can and soon they will be able to get married all across this country as well. And there ain't a damn thing the homophobes can do about it.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

It's odd that priests raping little boys does not seem to draw the same outrage from the pope gays getting married does.