From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen/popes-attack-on-marriage-equality-will-backfire_b_2360410.html
Wayne Besen
12/26/2012
Instead of using his annual Christmas address to call for unity and peace on Earth, Pope Benedict XVI squandered his big moment to declare war on the gay community. In a mean-spirited and hyperbolic speech, the pontiff tried to whip up fear about the unfounded threat caused by marriage equality. He demanded that the world’s major religions join forces — like a twisted version of the old Super Friends cartoon — to defeat gay marriage initiatives worldwide.
According to the Reuters report:
The Vatican has gone on the offensive in response to gains for gay marriage in the United States and Europe, using every possible opportunity to denounce it through papal speeches or editorials in its newspaper or on its radio station.
In some countries, the Catholic Church has already joined forces with Jews, Muslims and members of other religions to oppose the legalization of gay marriage.
While the ranting from Rome sounds scary, this campaign offers more pitfalls than positive outcomes for the Vatican. The 2012 elections in America were the equivalent of winning the Kentucky Derby for the LGBT community, yet this most unsympathetic and unpopular pope thinks he can put the champion racehorse back in the barn. The Vatican is a bit late to the track, it seems, and if Benedict thinks this miracle is going to happen, his handlers should stop him from inhaling more incense.
Urging American Catholics to vote against marriage equality is a losing strategy already tested this year by Derek McCoy, Executive Director of the Maryland Marriage Alliance. At the Values Voter Summit, which took place in Washington, D.C., in September, McCoy warned, “If we lose in Maryland specifically the headlines will read the next day … ‘Catholic Governor of Maryland Switches the Catholic Vote.’”
And, indeed, McCoy’s tactic backfired when it hit the brick wall of the very Catholic governor he referenced in his speech, Martin O’Malley. This is the same dynamic that will haunt the pope in campaign after campaign. American and European Catholics trust their gay children and friends significantly more than a distant figurehead who presided over a stomach-turning pedophile priest scandal that has already cost Rome more than $2.5 billion in legal fees, prevention programs and settlements.
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