One Crazy Catholic Compares Homosexuality to Obesity

The Catholic Church has been atrocious on LGBT rights.  They are essentially leading the fight to take away the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples in Maine, contributed millions on California to fund Prop 8, and now one Catholic leader from Virginia is going so far as to compare homosexuality to obesity.  The reason?  Well, in the words of Deacon Keith Fournier from Virginia:

I have struggled most of my life with fighting obesity. I am on the “winning end” lately, but just give me another Holiday! A very good argument can be made that obesity [like sexual orientation] also has a genetic predisposition. However, I will fight it my whole life because it is unhealthy. It is a disordered appetite. Should we as a Nation decide that fat people have a civil right to be fat? Should those who insist that they resist that “genetic predisposition” to overeat be called Fata-phobic?

Disordered appetites - and the actions engaged in by those who give into them – simply should not be called civil rights. Certainly, those who succumb to them should be treated with the human dignity that they deserve and not be discriminated against. However, that is because they are human not because of their behavior! Homosexual sexual acts are simply homosexual sexual acts. Our bodies do not lie, they speak the language written within their constitution and confirmed in the Natural Law which binds us all.

Gross.  Pam Spaulding of the great Pam's House Blend called Deacon Keith's article "diseased thinking," and I couldn't agree more.  Deacon Keith is essentially saying that two people who love each other, who hold each other to sleep each night, who make coffee and breakfast for each other in the morning, who take care of children, who plan family vacations together, and who commit to growing old together are essentially disordered.  And to add fuel to the fire, Deacon Keith basically asserts that all overweight people have eating disorders.  That's not only offensive, it's completely untruthful.

If this is the level of dialogue being championed by Catholic leaders, then this Church has jumped off the deep end.  Deacon Keith's argument, by the way, is essentially a straw man.  Supporters of marriage equality are not asking for special rights - which the premise of Deacon Keith's article.  They're asking for equal rights.

To put Deacon Keith's question a different way: Should overweight people be denied 1,100 federal benefits in their marriage, have ballot questions put forward during each election season that threatens to take away their right to marry, and be told that they can't adopt or that they are unfit parents?

The answer is absolutely not.  And neither should LGBT people.  Too bad Deacon Keith choose such a poor analogy.  But then again, this is par for the course from Catholic leaders nowadays.  It's going to be incredibly important to watch what the Catholic Church is doing in Maine this coming year, as there might not be a more organized presence trying to strip gays and lesbians of their rights than the once prophetic and now pathetic church.