Filed under STFU

This is from last week but I just couldn't let it pass without reacting. According to The Guardian (UK), Pope Benedict XVI, the former (and more appropriately named) Cardinal Ratzinger, has condemned British equality legislation for running contrary to "natural law."

He was apparently referring to two recent developments, the first being a law from last year that bars discrimination against same-sex couples by adoption agencies. He claimed that's a "limitation on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs" because, bluntly, Catholic adoption agencies don't wanna deal wit' no fags.

The other is a pending law that

narrows the special exemption enjoyed by churches allowing them to exclude people whose lifestyles do not fit in with the religious ethos of an organisation when hiring staff.

How "the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded" which Ratzinger invoked involves the "freedom" to be a bigot went unexplained.

Despite the recent string of stinging losses in Maine, New York, and New Jersey, the slow progress toward full social and legal acceptance of LGBT folks and same-sex relationships continues both here and abroad.

"At the start of the decade, if you were gay and wanted to get married, you couldn't do it anywhere," said Hayley Gorenberg, the deputy legal director of Lambda Legal, a U.S. advocacy group for gay rights. "If you look at the progress since then, it's striking."

It is. Seven nations allow same-sex marriages and twenty more have some form of civil union or domestic partnership. Some cities, such as Mexico City, do as well. And even n the US, often a laggard on such matters despite our claims to open-mindedness and "live and let live," it appears clear that over time the tide is flowing in one direction only: toward justice.

Excuse the expression, but keep the faith.