A Portrait of Pope Benedict XVI's Big Gay Wedding

If you've been to a wedding, you no doubt know the part where after the vows are exchanged, the rings are adorned, and the candles are lit, the lovely married couple kisses. Such is the setting for Irish artist Kevin Sharkey's new work. Except this isn't an ordinary wedding. This is a gay wedding. And Pope Benedict XVI is performing the ceremony.

Controversial? Perhaps a little, given that Pope Benedict XVI has made his position on same-sex marriage clear. Over the past few years, the Pope has called gay marriage more dangerous than climate change, insinuated that gay marriage runs contrary to the fabric of humanity, and has called homosexuality grotesque.

And therein lies the motivation behind Sharkey's work. The artist spoke to Pink News about his painting, "You May Now Kiss the Groom," where the Pontiff's likeness is standing between two grooms exchanging rings. According to Sharkey, the Pope's vigilance at condemning love between two men or two women prompted him to do this painting.

"We were passionate about doing this work," Sharkey said. "I'm a firm believer in that if you visualize something for long enough, it'll come to be true. It's about drawing people's attention. People will look at that and remember that they saw an image of the Pope marrying two men."

You can certainly say that again. And consider Sharkey perhaps the most optimistic man on the entire planet, for suggesting that just visualizing the Pope conducting a same-sex marriage might eventually lead to that reality. Sure, I've no doubt that eventually the Catholic Church will come around on same-sex marriage. But during this Pope's lifetime? Not unless he lives to be 120.

It's somewhat appropriate that Sharkey's work is getting attention, given that he's Irish, and Ireland's Conference of Catholic Bishops has started to rail against a civil partnership bill in the country. That bill would grant same-sex couples many of the benefits that heterosexual married couples get in Ireland. Yet the Catholic Church wants to make sure that if civil registrars disagree with homosexuality, they shouldn't be forced to grant gay couples civil partnerships.

That merits repeating, given that the Catholic Church is actually calling for government officials to be given the right to openly discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. Kind of reminds me of those pharmacists who try to prescribe morality, when really their job just requires them to prescribe drugs.

You can check out Sharkey's art work here. And the good news? As the Pope prepares for a 2010 trek to the United Kingdom, folks are already trying to contact Sharkey to see if they can put the image on T-shirts. Now imagine if Pope Benedict XVI were confronted with tens of thousands of these as a welcome sign? Now that would be the Kodak moment to end all Kodak moments.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons