Pope: homosexuality "a destruction of God's work"

Ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet like never before. And what does the Pope preach about? Saving humanity from homosexual behaviour.

Thank (enter name of your god here)__________ that most Catholics are decent people and have minds of their own. Because, right when he could be preaching about seriously important stuff and offer support to the multitudes in financial and existential misery, Pope Ratzinger a.k.a Benedict XVI is still sprinkling bowels juice all over 'non-heterosexuals'.

He said yesterday that "saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction". Fancy that. It's like a 90s revival - like back to the days when The Sun were howling against the "Gay Mafia". But, as far as the Vatican goes, this Taleban-style kick is nothing new. In October, a leading catholic official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound". In November, the Vatican announced the “psychological screening” of all new applicants for the priesthood in the hope of weeding out gays.

Time is ticking and, at the Vatican, they keep speaking out of their arse.

According to human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, the Vatican still "identifies homosexuality as a deep-seated personality disorder and psychological flaw; condemning same-sex acts as 'grave sins', 'objectively disordered', 'intrinsically immoral' and 'contrary to natural law'. Even men who have a gay orientation but abstain totally from sex are condemned by the Pope as possessing a 'tendency towards an intrinsic moral evil.'"

The easy temptation is to take a swipe at Ratzinger's Nazi youth (as it's well-documented, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth until 1941), but it'd have little to do with all the high ranks in the Vatican who are similarly homophobic and never spent a minute of their youth doing the macarena to Hitler.

In the words of the Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement: "When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way because they feel that they are doing God's work in ridding the world of these people." Bear in mind that up to 70 nations still have legal punishments for gay people including, in some instances, the death penalty.