Pope opposes militant homosexuals' 'gender theory'

Briefing: this is the theory that gender roles - including parental responsibilities and sexual roles - are matters of convention, and can be changed. It is promoted by militant homosexual groups to justify gay sex, gay marriage, gay adoption and the attack on the family. Note the absurd but threatening reaction of the spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (see our dossier on its 'Catholic' caucus): if you criticise our ideology, we will accuse you of violent homophobia. (The LGCM has already described the Pope as a homophobe) In a follow-up article, the BBC is also able to quite Mark Dowd, until recently Chair of Quest, the dissident 'Catholic' Gay group, now at the environmentalist group 'Operation Noah', as saying the comments betrayed "a lack of openness to the complexity of creation".

The Holy Father also called for an end to the depiction of World Youth Day as a kind of 'rock festival'.

From the BBC: Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
He explained that defending God's creation was not limited to saving the environment, but also about protecting man from self-destruction. The Pope was delivering his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff.

His words, later released to the media, emphasised his rejection of gender theory.
Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurred the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.

Gender theory
Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender, and how people perceive their biological identity. Gay and transsexual groups, particularly in the United States, promote it as a key to understanding and tolerance, but the Pope disagreed.

When the Roman Catholic Church defends God's Creation, "it does not only defend the earth, water and the air... but (it) also protects man from his own destruction," he said. "Rainforests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being ... does not deserve it less," the pontiff said.
It is not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or woman'", he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican's sumptuous Clementine Hall. "We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way." The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of Britain's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, described the Pope's remarks as "totally irresponsible and unacceptable". "When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way," she said. 

'Rock festival'
The pope uses his traditional end-of-year speech to offer his Christmas greetings and say a few words about what he considers the important issues of the day. This year, Pope Benedict also deplored the tendency to depict the Catholic church's World Youth Day, which he attended in Sydney earlier this year, as mere spectacle. He stressed that the event should not be considered a "variant of modern youth culture, as a kind of ecclesiastical rock festival with the Pope as the star," but as the fruition of a "long exterior and interior path".