In his Christmas address the Pope attacked same-sex marriage.   In his remarks, Benedict quoted the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, in saying the campaign for granting gays the right to marry and adopt children was an “attack” on the traditional family made up of a father, mother and children. He claims that gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, was a “threat to world peace” (Wow! I think there may be other, better candidates. Ed.).

“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.”  (Ed.:  make it for themselves??)

(The Pope does seem confused.  Can someone explain his reasoning?  Maybe its the translation but I don’t follow his logic.  Homosexuals are not denying their nature, they are accepting it when they realize what their preferences are, given them by nature. Ed.)

The Pope’s chief problem with gay marriage seems to be that out-of-control troublemakers are deciding for themselves their roles within their cultures, whereas in the olden days the church decided your role in society.

(The above is edited and adapted from Huffingon Post, Dec 22nd).

Thoughtful people know that homosexuals are born , not made, and that if there is  a God, then God made them thus.  It is not a choice.

My personal feeling is that homosexuals should have precisely the same legal and societal rights as anyone else and that Benedict’s crusade against nature should terminate immediately.  On the other hand, the prejudice, promoted by organised religions is deep, and it might be politic to campaign for the equal legal rights, but be more gradualist about the word “marriage”.  It gets up the nose of the self-righteous and is contrary to to Epicurean “ataraxia”.

Epicureanism stands for equal treatment for everyone. Excluding women and homosexuals is  ridiculous.