Homosexuals are being scapegoated by various members of the Church in an attempt to deflect criticism away from the fact that they've been harboring known molesters of children of both sexes and other criminals for years, but it's "not germaine" to outside commentary?
Sorry, but it became relevant as soon as the scapegoating started.
Now, whether or not a commentator is Catholic is only germaine while discussing the Church's policy on priests -- I really don't think a non-Catholic has any business voicing an opinion on celibacy, banning homosexuals from the priesthood, etc. If the discussion is about the criminal actions of the Church, it's irrelevant.
Straight out of the "talking points" being circulated in e-mail, pro-homosexual websites, and fed to sympathetic reporters.
If you can't dispute the facts (homosexual men are attracted to young boys), pound the table about being "scapegoated."
If these faithless and perverted priests are ALSO violating the legitimate secular law (malum in se which prohibits and punishes acts evil in and of themselves), they can be charged, arrested, incarcerated, tried, convicted and punished whether the offense is molesting six-year olds, seventeen year-olds, or robbing banks or violating health regulations. That is the state's business and therefore the business of all taxpayers.
That lavender mafia which exists outside the Church structure can also mind its own business which most certainly does not include who may or may not be practicing priests of the Roman Catholic Church.
See, we, as Catholics refrain from sticking our noses into who runs the local Lamda Legal Defense Fund or chapter of the North American Man Boy Love Association and the lavenders keep their noses, inter alia, out of matters Catholic. For the lavenders to butt in would be just another case of ignoring what is supposed to go where. Animal lovers need not apply either. Call it scapegoating all you like, but RCs do not have to put up with the narcissistic demands for attention by practitioners of the love that once dared not speak its name but cannot nowadays shut its yap. Internally, duly constituted Churchg authority can and ought to purge this menace relentlessly. See the First Amendment.