I got a comment on the post GAY FRIENDSHIP AND GAY LOVE VIA CHAT like follows:
“What matters is the source of your wisdom , knowledge and understanding.. Man must not lean unto his own understanding but in all his ways, his comings and goings, acknowledge HIM and HE will direct your path, and he is THE CREATOR OF THIS UNIVERSE. God despises homosexuality. It’s sickening and disgusting. Satan bought that sin into the world. He came to kill, maim, and destroy mankind. You have free will. You have a choice. Go to the BIBLE it’s the true source and the road map to everlasting LIFE. SATAN IS A DECEIVER…..Peace and Light…..”
Of course everyone is free to believe what in his eyes looks better, but the use of judging reality on the basis of the Bible led to the Inquisition, to the torture and to the burning at the stake those who, following their conscience, think differently.
Already in the statutes of the city of Bologna, in 1259, citizens were urged to denounce the sodomites and the sodomites themselves were punished with exile, while those who offered hospitality to homosexuals in their home where punished with death.
Throughout the thirteenth century, laws promulgated in Germany, France and Switzerland punish homosexuals condemning them to the stake. In 1277, in Basel, Emperor Rudolph does burn a homosexual at the stake, and this practice is also attested in some regions of France. In 1293, in Italy is attested the first sentence to the stake against a homosexual, when Charles II of Anjou does impale and burn at the stake the Count of Acerra, accused of sodomy, although the reasons underlying were purely political in nature.
In Siena the constitution condemned homosexuals surprised to commit acts “against nature” to a fine of 300 pounds, and to the hanging by the genitals “in the event of non-payment.”
The Papal State punished pimps, who offered guys for money, with lashes and perpetual exile, while sodomites were burned at the stake.
Throughout the fourteenth century, the death penalty through the stake is adopted throughout Italy, and will be maintained in the fifteenth century. In Milan under the Sforza, people who denounced homosexuals were rewarded with money. In Venice in the early fifteenth century a scandal that involved in questions related to sodomy the highest offices of the “Serenissima Republic” caused a violent repression of homosexuality.
A special case is the Florentine republic, where until 1400 homosexuals were not punished with the stake, but with monetary fines joined with the “castration” and the cutting of the right hand if the offender was relapsed. However, they were burned at the stake foreigners who committed sodomitical acts during their passage in the Florentine territory. In 1430, following an unpleasant event that shook public opinion, even the law of Florence became more severe, with higher fines but burning at the stake was only required in case of recidivism.
I don’t know if these are ways to oppose against the work of Satan and comply with God’s will, frankly, I think these things are horrendous crimes of homophobia that have been masked under the guise of law, as unfortunately happens in some countries also today.
What is certain is that religions have in all this a great responsibility because contributed to incite hatred against homosexuals and continue to do so. Saints such as St. Peter Damian and theologians as the Bishop of Worms Burchard have supported and encouraged with their attitude, anticipating the Inquisition, hatred against homosexuals. I invite you to read an article of this blog dedicated to Liber Gomorrhianus of St. Peter Damian.
I quote here below the passages more interesting for Homosexual Persons of the Message of Benedict XVI for the World Day of Peace XLVI, 1 January 2013, on the theme: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“Even the natural structure of marriage must be recognized and promoted as a union between a man and a woman, compared to attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role.
These principles are not truths of faith, or are just a tap of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, identified with reason, and therefore they are common to all mankind. The Church’s action in promoting them is therefore not confessional in character, but is addressed to all people, regardless of their religious affiliation. Such action is all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, because this constitutes an offense against the truth of the human person, a grave wound inflicted onto justice and peace.”
After reading such statements it is natural to wonder if freedom itself constitutes “an offense against the truth of the human person, a grave wound inflicted onto justice and peace.”
But the positions radically discriminatory against homosexuality are frequent, I quote just an example. In late 2008, the Holy See has taken a position strongly opposed to the project of a universal decriminalization of homosexuality presented at the UN on the initiative of the French Presidency of the European Union, and accepted by all 27 European Union countries. According to the Holy See it is legitimate that homosexuality is prosecuted as a crime.
But the discriminatory attitude doesn’t belong exclusively to the Catholic Church. The Chief Rabbi of France argued that the recognition of gay couples is “at the expense of the public interest and for the benefit of a tiny minority.” The speech of the Chief Rabbi was widely quoted in “Osservatore Romano” (the newspaper of the Holy See) and also the Pope quoted some excerpts of that speech.
For those who think that freedom and equality in a moral dimension but absolutely secular and independent of revealed truths of any kind, are the foundation of any civil society, the idea that someone can promote a crusade against the recognition of the rights of others is unacceptable.
Among other things, the speech of the Pope and that of Chief Rabbi are not limited to the adoption but aim immediately, in Italy and in France, to avoid the legal recognition of same-sex couples, which is really inexcusable outside a confessional logic.
At the base of the speeches of the Chief Rabbi and of the Pope there is the assumption that the Bible is the foundation of anthropology, that the world is not as it really is, but as it is described in the Bible and that the world should conform to what the Bible says, statements that to a layman are absolutely immoral.
To say that gay rights are “at the expense of the public interest and for the benefit of a tiny minority” is completely gratuitous, because homosexuality is an anthropological absolutely objective and undeniable reality (gays exist even if someone does not like them and are not a tiny minority) and if someone consider gays as a “tiny minority” he probably doesn’t even know exactly what he is talking about and simply repeats dogmatically what the Bible says as if the Bible and not the reality was the basis of anthropology and of civilized life.
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If you like, you can join the discussion on this post on Gay Project Forum:
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