A bit of current affairs for you now. Last week the Guardian reported that Pope Benedict XVI had spoken to a collection of Bishops from England and Wales recently, in preparation for his planned visit on 16th-19th September this year.
Ben (as I like to call him) was concerned that the UK's equality laws 'threatened religious freedom' and 'ran contrary to natural law', which to me sounds like it could be taken as just a tad homophobic, considering the recent kerfuffle over catholic adoption agencies illegally discriminating against gay couples. The other affect that the equality laws have on catholicism is that they make it harder for churches to exclude job applications from gay people and people who've changed their gender. It'll be interesting to see whether the visit runs smoothly or not...
The National Secular Society is already planning its protests around the Pope's visit, pointing out that the state will be presented with a £20 million bill for an old man to visit and complain about equal rights and promote discrimination
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comments:
Love the pic of the Pope! A particularly provocative intervention by the pontiff during LGBTQ History Month. I well recall the news item when it first broke: **!!**! ....And particularly relevant for my own interests: religious attitudes towards homosexuality.
To keep up to date with such matters, you could do worse than set your alarm for 7 a.m. every Sunday to listen to R.4's 'Sunday' programme. You can guarantee there will be an item on religious homophobia - oh, I mean homosexuality the sin, not the sinner of course! Has anyone ever seen homosexuality without a person attached to it? Its possible apparantly. And then if you are a real early bird, you can tune into the World Service which has some excellent religious programmes - daytime as well of course.
Back to Ben. Its such a good post, because it perfectly illustrates the level of impunity afforded religions to attack LGBT people. Goodness, the man is a guest; is he not even aware of common politeness Likewise the attitudes of the Anglican and RC churches towards the appointment of women to bishoprics - yes that is the word - and the misogynistic gorging which accompanied the run-up to the acceptance of women priests. A curse on all your houses I say!
Good for you Mark for linking a current topic with history - also an interest of mine. The persecution of homosexuals has been going on since Time Immemorial and will continue to do so unless we, at least, support LGBTQ History Month! Sandra.
Post a Comment