Thank the Lord for Gays! (or "It's the Poofs, Stupid!")

The UK parliament is currently enacting a law that, amongst other things, would make it unlawful for adoption agencies to discriminate against prospective adoptive or fostering gay parents. This seems to me to be a classic case of bad law, as how the hell can it be policed? Laws that can’t be enforced are simply bad laws. But I digress.

The Catholic church (which apparently loves us all) runs a number of adoption agencies in the UK. Good luck to them, and I don’t mind that they’re funded by the state (and thus by own queer taxes). I’m sure that they do good work and improve lives. This is just the sort of thing that religions should do, instead of peevishly mumbling in cold buildings and spreading fear and hate.

Should the new law be passed, the Catholic church is fearful that they might have to place a child with Sodomites (or whatever lesbians do). Rather than face the possibility of delivering a child into the hands of Ellen DeGeneres rather than Fred and Rosemary West, they are saying that they’ll close their children’s homes, presumably producing a new generation of Oliver Twist-esque street urchins. Better eat from bins and mug old women for drug money than be given a loving home with a couple of dykes, eh?

It’s always worth pointing out that the Jesus was completely silent on the issue of homosexuality, which I conclude means He thought it unimportant. Homophobes have to delve into the otherwise ignored madder parts of the Old Testament to find something that might be construed as a backdoor eleventh commandment against poofterdom. Anybody who hates poofs in the name of God, but fails to stone raped women is a hypocrite. Read the Bible and check. I have.

The truth here is that preaching homophobia is good for market share. The Catholic and Anglican churches compete fiercely for share of developing markets such as Africa. It’s just business. Rather than take a meaningful stance on Christian-Muslim-Jewish reconciliation (which would stop no end of suffering) and a million other things that could make the world a happier place, they prefer to indulge in a spot of queerbashing. In a move which I see as the very zenith of cynicism, they invoke that old chestnut of an idea that poofs are a danger to children. Unlike priests, presumably.

It’s just the sort of thing that makes me and many others despise organised religion. Rowan Williams (head honcho Anglican) has predictably sat on the fence on this issue once more, as he can’t afford to lose the homophones himself. Rowan, you’re a bloody coward. This sort of stuff doesn’t just mean right thinking people stop going to church, it makes them actively dislike those that do. I feel sure that Jesus of Nazareth would not have been impressed.