Hey Pope Benedict XVI: Fight Climate Change, Not LGBT People
During an annual end-of-year message last year, Pope Benedict XVI made a very un-peaceful move in comparing the threat of climate change to homosexuality and gender identity. The Pope, usually not one to miss a beat when it comes to calling LGBT people sinful, said that homosexuality was about as much of a threat to the human race as climate change.
Clearly this Pope has never visited the Maldives, or he might come to think that an entire nation being swallowed up by a rising ocean might be significantly worse than two women sleeping together.
The Pope's address was a veiled attempt to say that gender theory -- the type of thinking about human sexuality that promotes tolerance and acceptance of LGBT people, and views sexual orientation as a much more complex issue than the church's black-and-white thinking -- would dismantle humankind. Gay rights groups justifiably blew a gasket.
Today, on Blog Action Day (http://www.blogactionday.org/), it seems critical to think back about Pope Benedict XVI's unfortunate comparison, and challenge the Pope not to fall into the same sort of destructive thinking. If this is a planet worth saving, it's going to take all walks of life -- from queer people to the most devout Catholics.
It's a good thing that Pope Benedict XVI sees climate change as a threat to humanity. The Catholic Church has some muscle, given that it's one of the largest religious denominations in the entire world, and it should be treating the issue of climate change as if it were a threat to humankind. It is. But to say that gay people are as much a threat to the world as climate change isn't productive. It's hurtful.
Two months from now, when the Pope gives another annual message, here's hoping he touches on climate change. And here's hoping he leaves the gay-bashing out.
Michael Jones
is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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