Pope Continues Grand Catholic Tradition of Deeming Same-Sex Marriage Uncool

There’s a popular line conservative Christians like to trot out, as they work to suppress the rights of others: Love the sinner but hate the sin. Pope Francis and the Vatican are big fans of this Bible logic and the latest missive from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the group responsible upholding strict Catholic doctrine, reaffirms the sentiment by prohibiting same-sex marriages from being blessed by Catholic priests. The CDF’s stance is not new or surprising. But somewhat staggering is that, according to The Guardian, Francis himself signed off on the decree, despite the current popes repeated attempts at bringing his rainbow-colored sheep back into the flock (and then backtracking on those attempts.)

In the Catholic faith, and in most conservative interpretations of Christianity, “homosexual acts” are considered an affront to God’s creation of human beings, with the purpose of maintaining the earth’s population. This interpretation is wildly closed-minded and also casually overlooks the fact that the Bible literally says that humans were created to know and worship God (Ecclesiastes, Genesis) and not just to bone until death. But that’s neither here nor there.

Same-sex relationships disrupt this because several thousand years ago, when the books of the Bible were written, these relationships could not produce offspring. Modern science has made this argument utterly irrelevant, but if there is one thing organized religions love, it’s clinging to old shit.

So while the Catholic church, under the papacy of Francis, has opened its arms to the LGBTQ members, they are alligator arms at best. LGBTQIA+ believers are welcome to pay their tithes and participate in nearly all the sacraments, as long as they don’t expect to have the reality of their lives acknowledged by the church. Sounds like a great deal to me.