POPE HITS DEVILISH LIFESTYLES

Tucked into the corner of page forty-six in April 9th’s Sunday Mail, a short article gave us a preview of what is to come on Good Friday, when Pope Benedict XVI will deliver his first Easter message from the Coliseum in Rome. In a clear allusion to recent international bids for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, Vatican sources tell us the Pope will condemn the “monotone publicity” and “insidious propaganda” of an “absurd cult of Satan, a mad desire for transgression, a false liberty, without conscience, that exalts caprice, vice and selfishness.”

Unfortunately, this close-minded approach to same-sex relationships has long been the popular opinion of patriarchal religious and government institutions, whose mutual power-base lies in their ability to simply make life easier for people. You see, it’s always easier to see in black and white, it’s easier to put others below oneself, and it’s always easier to have an enemy – whether that enemy is a person, an emotion or an action. While racism still exists, in general we have grown out of the belief that people of colour are inferior to Caucasians. With the 17th annual International Women’s Day in March, we celebrated the (slow) death of sexism. So what’s next? It’s high time gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals (GLBT) walked out the closet with pride, and didn’t have rotten tomatoes thrown in their direction. But perhaps, more importantly, it’s high time members of the GLBT community walked out the closet with pride, and weren’t sweep straight under the carpet.