From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/12/21/1370301/pope-benedict-uses-christmas-speech-to-call-same-sex-marriage-a-manipulation-of-nature/
By Rebecca Leber
on Dec 21, 2012
At his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI called same-sex marriage a “manipulation of nature” to be deplored and an attack on the “essence of the human creature.”
It was the second time this week that Benedict took aim at marriage equality:
People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.
The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.
Benedict has repeatedly condemned same-sex marriage as “defection in human nature” that bears an “immense human and economic cost.” Most recently, he used his World Day of Peace message to claim that marriage equality presents a “serious harm to justice and peace.”
