New pope, same as the last pope (take two)

The new pope still will have none of this, but at least he would let them keep their heads. Yay!

Yes, it could be much worse, I suppose.

At least the new pope isn’t calling for the beheading of gay men, like the 89-year-old dictator of Zimbabwe is. (Robert Mugabe might believe in equal opportunity and believe that lesbians should be beheaded, too, but his rhetoric apparently is aimed primarily or solely at gay men. [“If you take men and lock them in a house for five years and tell them to come up with two children and they fail to do that, then we will chop off their heads,” Mugabe bizarrely proclaimed recently.])

But despite the news today — I guess that it was a slow news day — that the pope has done some 180 on the matter of homosexuality, know that Pope Francis apparently still upholds the Catholick Church’s doctrine that “under no circumstances can [any homosexual acts] be approved. … Homosexual persons are called to chastity.”

“Asked for his position on gay marriage,” Time reports, “[Francis] answered: ‘You know perfectly the position of the Church.’”

This is supposed to be a kinder, gentler pope, yet there has been no policy change on homosexuality. None. Nada, zip, zilch, zero.

“It’s Not What the Pope Said About Gays, It’s How He Said It,” the headline for the Time news article is.

Really?

We must be nice to gays, Francis said. Yes, he did say that, more or less.

But how, exactly, can you uphold an oppressive set of policies* yet still be considered to be such a swell fucking guy?

What if heterosexuals were told that they weren’t to be mistreated for their unfortunate affliction of opposite-sex attraction, but that should they ever act on that opposite-sex attraction, even within the context of a marriage, that would be a sin?

What if heterosexuals were told that marriage only is the union of two men or two women?

What if Catholicks were told that sure, they can be Catholicks in their heads, but that for them to actually practice their belief system — go to confession, kneel, eat that wafer, whatever it is that they do at Mass, for instance — would be wrong, forbidden?

I don’t know… At least Robert Mugabe is pretty fucking direct about his feelings about homosexuality. Sure, he’s a pathetic, addled old dictator who just wants to steal another election on Wednesday, and is throwing some red meat to his fellow backasswards homo-haters, but at least in Zimbabwe, you, as a gay man (maybe you, too, as a lesbian) would know exactly where you stand.

But here is the Catholick Church saying, “Oh, you can be a fag or dyke — just never, ever do what fags and dykes feel compelled to do!”

That’s just backdoor hatred and bigotry and discrimination. The message from the Catholick Church is the same: If you aren’t heterosexual, you are defective. If you aren’t heterosexual, God doesn’t accept you. If you aren’t heterosexual, you can’t ever have sex, even within the context of marriage, because you can’t get married!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fuck the Catholick Church. And fuck the pope, who is no nice guy (and who, for all we know, is a gay man himself…).

P.S. My first take on Pope Francis is here.

—

*Pope Francis also firmly opposes women being able to enter the priesthood or, apparently, the Catholick Church’s all-male hierarchy.

How can this woefully outdated patriarchal policy not give women and girls the clear idea that they are inferior to men and boys?

This is sick shit, not love.