Gay Catholics should leave the Church with their dignity intact

GAY CATHOLICS SHOULD LEAVE THE CHURCH WITH THEIR DIGNITY INTACT

Gay Catholics should abandon the Church that hates them, says GALHA.

The news that the Vatican is to conduct an anti-gay witch hunt in Catholic seminaries around the world is the final straw in the Church’s ongoing persecution of gay people, says the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA).

GALHA is calling on all gay Catholics to leave the Church and thereby stop giving it their financial, moral and practical support.

GALHA secretary George Broadhead commented: “The Pope’s latest insult to gay people should convince gay Catholics once and for all that they are not welcome in the Church, and that eventually they could find themselves being unceremoniously thrown out, just as gay priests will be. They should leave with their dignity intact and ensure that their fellow Catholics understand why they have done so.”

Mr Broadhead said that the Vatican’s continued insulting condemnations of gay people affected not only gay Catholics but all gay people, religious or not. “Whenever the Pope issues his defamatory statements about gays, they are widely reported. They add credence to the idea that it is perfectly alright to despise people because of their sexual orientation, and they legitimise more extreme forms of persecution. The latest purge of seminarians reinforces the spurious idea that all gay men are paedophiles. How any self-respecting gay man or lesbian can continue to support an institution that so patently wishes to hurt them is beyond comprehension."

Mr Broadhead added that he hoped that heterosexual Catholics of goodwill would make clear their own opposition to the Pope’s persecution of gay people and consider abandoning the Church themselves.

(This has been issued as a GALHA news release)