The version of Catholic teaching on sex that I received was pretty straightforward. Don’t do it unless you are married, love each other and won’t mind if a baby results. Girls shouldn’t wear highly polished shoes with a skirt and if they sit on a boy’s knee should have a telephone directory underneath. Instances of self gratification need to be reported at confession and will result in ten Hail Marys. 
Homosexuality is mainly practised by Protestants but if God has made you that way you just should accept that it’s part of a bigger plan, avoid acting on your urges and control them with pious ejaculations – of the prayerful sort.
Now you don’t have to agree with any of that but it does have an unworldly internal coherence. That’s why headlines like “Pope accused of stoking homophobia” in The Times are a bit pointless. He’s just sticking to the same message his organisation has been putting out for nearly two millenia. The novel twist is bringing the rainforest into his homophobic discourse. “Behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations was a “destruction of God’s work” is just what he’s paid to say but the punchline “The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less” wasn’t obvious.
Public homophobia is part of the job description for senior clerics in most religions. More irritating are the acolytes who maintain that the man who is running the business does not properly represent its true values. So when somone criticises the Pope for “a lack of openness to the complexity of creation” or “homosexuality is a manifestation of love, another face of God” one has to put the question “How many bishops do you have?”
Sincere religious believers have a real problem in trying to reconcile their sexuality with their belief if they are not disposed to practise heterosexual marriage. Every major religion is homophobic. The Pope has just reminded us of that. Lots of people reach their own compromises and come up with their own interpretations of doctrine to justify their lifestyles. That’s a pointless exercise because sooner or later the powers that be try to turn back history’s clock and force the choice between returning to their reactionary orthodoxy or living the way you want.
Liam redux 
Leave a reply to Phil Cancel reply