Posted on 02/02/2010 2:02:22 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LONDON (AFP) – Gay-rights campaigners and secularists called on Tuesday for protests during a visit to Britain by Pope Benedict XVI this year after he condemned equality legislation seen as friendly to gays.
The 82-year-old pontiff made his comments on Monday, when he confirmed plans to visit Britain later this year in what would be the first such trip in 28 years. The papal trip is expected in September, one minister has said.
Human rights campaigner and gay activist Peter Tatchell said he saw the pope's remarks as an attack on the legal rights granted to gay people and women.
"His ill-informed claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos.
"He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law."
The pope said Britain "is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity."
But he added that "the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs."
"In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."
...
The government said equality legislation did not apply to purely religious jobs.
...
"However, when it comes to non-religious jobs, those organisations must comply with the law."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said the premier had "enormous respect and admiration for the Pope ..
He did not comment directly .. , but said: "The government has set out very clearly its position on equal opportunities and the legislation that Harriet Harman and others have talked about is very clear."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
People are not free to be Christian.
He’s the pope for crying out loud. What’d they expect him to do, applaud?
read later
If don’t ask, don’t tell in the military is so bad, why does the lavender mafia keep silent over their proclivities when they report the news?
There is an agenda at work in the media and those pushing it are silent as to WHY.
The Gay agenda is an offense to nature and reason as well as for christian teachings!
The Pope is perfectly right. It is obvious that equating heterosexuality and homosexuality is a non-sense dangerous for individuals and society leading to confusions and disorders.
Have any of these antiCatholic bigots picketed muslims clerics when then come to speak publicly? Have they questioned them on homosexual rights?
What the gay activist does not understand is that Christians are to obey God rather than man. There is a higher law. Of course, if you are a secularist, the state is god. If you reject natural law and divine revelation, you are left with moral relativism. Without God, there is no such thing as good or evil or sin. Those terms have no intrinsic meaning. Good is strictly subjective as well as evil. Without God their is no such thing as sin, for sin is a theological concept.
Europe is rapidly becomming arab and muslim. This represents a very homophobic demograpic shift. The future looks very bleak for European homosexuals.
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