Gay Popes: Leo X (r. 1513-1521)

Accounts about the homosexual liaisons of Julius's successor, Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici, 1474-1521; reigned 1513-21), are recorded in a variety of different types of contemporary sources, and they were repeated in historical accounts of the papacy published in the later sixteenth century. Having received an outstanding humanistic education, he was appointed Cardinal in 1492 by Innocent VIII. Beginning in 1508, he served Julius II as papal legate; in that capacity, he arranged for papal troops to invade Florence in order to secure the return of the Medici, who had been exiled from the city in 1497.

Unanimously elected Pope, Leo focused his energies upon the patronage of the arts and sciences. He established Greek colleges in Rome and Florence, promoted the study of Hebrew and Arabic writings, and gave strong support to printing. He funded extensive archaeological excavations, which uncovered the monumental antique statue of the river-god Nile (Vatican Museums) and other significant works, and he ordered the restoration of several important Early Christian churches, including Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

To give the city of Rome a more dignified appearance, Leo widened the streets and restored several public squares, including the Piazza del Popolo. In Florence, he commissioned Michelangelo to design a new façade for San Lorenzo (project design, 1516-19; never realized) and to undertake one of his most significant projects--the building and decoration of the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, including Medici family tombs (1519-34).

Gay Marriage: The Fallacy of the Church’s Argument Against.

Writing in El Paso Times, Texan priest Fr Michael Rodriguez has launched an impassioned diatribe against all forms of legal recognition for same sex union. His ranting could easily be dismissed as the lunatic fringe, but as so many Catholic catechismophiles share his ridiculous claims and assumptions, I think it is worth responding in full. This is his key assertion:

“Remember: Every single Catholic, out of fidelity to charity and truth, has the absolute duty to oppose (1) the murder of unborn babies, and (2) any and all government attempts to legalize homosexual unions.” 

Not content to invent a supposed moral obligation to oppose all forms of union, he goes even further:

“Any Catholic who supports homosexual acts is, by definition, committing a mortal sin, and placing himself/herself outside of communion with the Roman Catholic Church.”

Furthermore, a Catholic would be guilty of a most grievous sin of omission if he/she neglected to actively oppose the homosexual agenda, which thrives on deception and conceals its wicked horns under the guises of "equal rights," "tolerance," "who am I to judge?," etc.

What has he been smoking? He claims to base his words on a pastoral letter of the US bishops, which says, in part:

"It is not unjust to oppose legal recognition of same-sex unions, because marriage and same-sex unions are essentially different realities. The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it."

Now I disagree with the bishops’ stance, but it as least an understandable, coherent position. It’s a big leap, though, to go from “it is not unjust to oppose…”, to saying that there exists an “absolute duty to oppose …“

He attempts to soften his position by stating

I urge all of the Catholic faithful to treat homosexuals with love, understanding, and respect.

In doing so, I fear that by his own standards, he damns himself. He has already insisted that a Catholic “would be guilty of a most grievous sin of omission if he/she neglected to actively oppose the homosexual agenda”. I have never been clear precisely what this notorious “agenda” comprises, but as one who actively promotes it, I am certain that a central part of it is precisely a demand to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. By urging this part of it, Fr Rodriguez is himself promoting a key component of our “agenda”, and by his own standards is thus committing a “grievous mortal sin”.

By his standards, he also condemns not just himself, but the majority of US and European lay Catholics, and also a significant proportion of the clergy and some bishops. How so? He claims that Catholics have an obligation to actively oppose the homosexual agenda. But numerous (US) research surveys have shown that a narrow majority of Catholics approve of same sex marriage and gay adoption, while more substantial  majorities approve some form of legal recognition, and do not see same sex relationships as being morally wrong. Among the clergy, some individual priests and groups of priests have publicly supported gay marriage, and many more privately support either marriage or civil unions. In Portugal, when the legal process that led to marriage equality first began, the country’s bishops attempted to prevent its introduction by asking for the provision of civil unions instead. As civil unions are one form of legal recognition which the bishops were actively promoting, where they too guilty of the “grievous sin” Rodriguez describes?

In April this year, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn, suggested that it is time for the church to reconsider its emphasis on “homosexual acts”, and instead consider the quality of the relationships. Since then three other bishops have said much the same thing. Are they too, condemned, for their “grievous sin”?

So, it would seem that Fr Rodriguez has taken it upon his own authority to condemn a huge proportion of the Catholic church for the grievous sin” of not actively opposing the homosexual agenda. Just what is he condemning us to? Read carefully, once again:

Any Catholic who supports homosexual acts is, by definition, committing a mortal sin, and placing himself/herself outside of communion with the Roman Catholic Church.”

He cannot be serious. This sounds like the same automatic excommunication recently invoked by the Bishop of Phoenix, and by the Vatican, in the cases of abortion and the “attempts” to ordain women. Is he really taking it on himself to proclaim the automatic excommunication  of half the church, and more?

Let’s be clear on this: It is certainly the collective desire of the the Catholic bishops that we should oppose same sex unions, but it is by no means a moral obligation to do so. Nowhere in orthodox Catholic teaching is there anything that says there is any moral obligation to do everything the bishops urge, and there most certainly is not anything in the Catechism, in the creed, or in our baptismal vows that imposes such a supposed obligation.

On the contrary, one obligation that is stated very clearly in the teaching of the Church, is the obligation to follow one’s conscience. This was stated very clearly by one Fr Joseph Ratzinger, who insisted that conscience must take priority even over the demands of the pope.

When approaching gay marriage from the prism of sexual ethics, many people may well find that the dictates of conscience may lead them to oppose it. But sexual ethics are not the only, or even the most important, dimension of Church teaching. Many Catholics believe that teaching on social justice, and reaching out to the poor and the marginalized, is more important. Approaching marriage equality from the prism of social justice, many Catholics have been led by conscience to conclude that they must support it. This was certainly the case with some of the Argentinean senators who supported their family equality bill, and with “Catholics for Marriage equality in the US”.

So, in focussing exclusively on the approach from sexual ethics, Rodriguez is ignoring a huge chunk of orthodox catholic teaching – on the primacy of conscience, and on social justice. He is also ignoring the evidence of history.

By insisting on the spurious claim of an obligation to oppose all forms of legal recognition, he is including civil unions – but civil unions are just that, legal contracts to provide some protections to the partners in a relationship. They are not about sexual relationships – partners wanting a sexual relationship can (and do) have one without requiring a contract to authorize it. And liturgical recognition of same sex unions has a long tradition in the church, as amply demonstrated by both John Boswell and Alan Bray . To this day, there are echoes of these same –sex unions in the modern Mass, with the paired names of Felicity and Perpetua, Phillip and Bartholomew incorporated into the Eucharistic prayer – just as they were listed in the liturgies for same sex unions. (No, these were not “comparable” to modern marriage – but nor are modern civil unions, and nor were the the early heterosexual marriages comparable to modern marriage.) To the cynics who insist that in practice, civil unions are about sex, I reply that they need not be. In the early church, many saintly married couples committed themselves to voluntary virginity, even within marriage. In the nineteenth century, Cardinal John Newman, who will be beatified next month, was famed for the intensity of his (celibate) love for his dear friend Ambrose St John, even to the extent of insisting on being buried with him in a shared grave “for all eternity”. For any Catholic of homosexual orientation wishing to live strictly within orthodox teaching, which clearly states that the homosexual “condition” is not sinful, this celibate emotional bond might well make a fitting model of emotional friendship. If two such people chose to share their lives together, in chastity, is it in any way conceivable that there is a “moral obligation” to oppose legal protection for their relationship?

Finally, Rodriguez even ignores  the evidence of the Gospels.

By His own words and actions, Jesus Christ clearly showed that He did not reject people in homosexual relationships. He demonstrated this by agreeing to heal the Roman centurion’s “servant” (“paidion”), in a context that would have strongly suggested a sexual relationship. This too, has an echo in the modern Mass – the prayer shortly before communion, “Lord, I am not worthy  to receive you….” is a close variant of the centurion’s reply when Jesus started off for his house “Lord.I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…”.

There is additional echo of gay unions in the Mass. Taken as a whole, theologian Gerard Loughlin has shown how it is an echo of the wedding at Cana, a wedding which in Catholic theology, is taken symbolically to represent Christ’s own wedding to his (male) disciples, and to the Church as a whole – including the men. There is even a tradition that the couple getting married were Jesus and His beloved disciple, John.

With three distinct echoes of gay relationships or unions, the Mass itself, the centrepiece of Catholic practice can be seen as promoting the “gay agenda” – or that part of it which seeks inclusion in Church.

Will Fr Rodriguez now cease celebrating the Mass?

  


  
  





To simplify: One would have to be ghastly morally decrepit to think that if 51 percent of Americans opine that rape is OK, then rape becomes, in effect, all right. Sure, the majority is politically capable of such a vote, but this could never make rape morally right.


This is typical of the garbage from the institutional Catholic Church, who blithely ignore their own history, which is full of recognized saints. ordained bishops and even popes who have had sex with men. For centuries (over half its history), the church recognized formal liturgical rites for church blessings of same sex unions, and also buried some same sex couples together in shared tombs, exactly as married couples.
The Mass itself contains three echoes of gay unions - the healing of the Roman soldier's "paidion" - i.e., his sexual servant is recalled in the words, "Lord, I am not worthy"; same sex couples named in the Eucharistic Prayer; and the Mass itself is commemorates Christ's wedding to his Church (male and female). Theologian Gerald Loughlin has noted that one tradition was that the famous wedding was that of Christ to his "beloved disciple" John.

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2010/07/message-for-nom.html
Same Sex Unions
The Very Modern “Traditional” Marriage
Modern Inclusive Churches
The Queer Mass:
Gay Wedding at Cana
Same sex couples recognised
Gay Centurion.

Catholics Support Gay Adoption.

In the US, the struggle over adoption by lesbian or gay families concerns those states which prohibit it, either by state law, or (in Florida) by a complete constitutional ban. In the UK, where discrimination against gay or lesbian prospective parents is prohibited by law, the battle is entirely different. Here, the Catholic Church is seeking an exemption from the terms of the law for one of its agencies.

My friend Celia Gardiner, who as a lawyer and as chair of the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, is heavily involved in correspondence with the Charities Commission on the Church's application. I fear I have become totally lost in trying to follow the legal niceties - so don't ask. However, I have undertaken to assist with passing on links to empirical evidence to contradict the claims on which the bishops base their case, so that I can happily share with you.

I have previously pointed out that in claiming that "Catholics" or "the Catholic Church" oppose gay marriage, the bishops (American or British) are being somewhat economical with the truth. It may be what the bishops oppose, it may be what they want the rest of us to oppose - but we do not simply mould our beliefs to episcopal diktat. Contrary to the Vatican line, most American Catholics do not believe that same sex relationships are morally unacceptable, and overall, are in favour or recognizing same sex marriage (that's full civil marriage, not just civil unions).

I have now tracked down similar information specifically on adoption, and guess what? the bishops may oppose it, but Catholics as a whole are in favour. Now note, please, that the data are two years old, from 2oo8 (prior to the US election). All the evidence is that attitudes have moved on since then. For the case of the UK, which prompted my investigation, public attitudes are generally more supportive. Any claim by the bishops that "the Catholic Church" opposes same sex adoption is almost certainly not factually correct. ?

Source: Pew Research, 2008

Epaminondas: Military Hero, Democrat, Cultured Statesman. Gay.

Epaminondas lived before the Christian era, outside the Jewish tradition, and has no claim whatsoever to be treated as a “saints in any literal sense. However, taking the term much more loosely, including those we might consider as role models, he clearly fits the bill. If that doesn’t suit you, think of him as included in the “others” of my title.

Together with his lover Pelopidas, Epaminondas was one of the celebrated “Sacred Band of Thebes”, a military company of 150 pairs of lovers. That’s right, an army band where it was compulsory to be gay – and partnered. We usually think of the Spartans as the most military of the Greek cities, and with good reason. While Athens (and some other cities following them) valued democracy, philosophy and intellectual life generally, young Spartans were educated for one thing only – war. After Sparta had convincingly beaten Athens and her allies in the Peloponnesian War, the victors extinguished democracy in the vanquished cities, and placed their allies in command as local despots.

In the case of Thebes, they met strong resistance from the defenders of democracy, in the form of the band of male lovers. Founded initially by Georgidas, on the principle that men never fight more bravely than when fighting to protect and support their loved ones alongside them, the founding proposition was soon confirmed. In their first engagement with the Spartan enemy, victors in the recent Peloponnesian war, the new company of Theban lovers overcame a Spartan army of two to three times their number, and were able to reinstate democracy in their city.

Epaminondaswas initially somewhat hidden in the shadow of his friend Pelopidas, who succeeded Georgidas as leader just a year after the band was founded. Together, they won many famous victories. Later, overshadowing his friend, he found the more enduring fame, and for many notable qualities beyond his illustrious military career.

After assisting in the re-establishment of democracy in Thebes, he developed a career as an orator and statesman as well as a soldier. Although he was instrumental in defeating Sparta in establishing Thebes as the dominant geek power, he refused to use this power to to subject other cities to Theban domination and pillage, so that he was known as a military liberator, not a conqueror. Many scholars have described him as Greece’s greatest warrior-statesman. Diodorus Siculus wrote that he excelled all the others in valour and military shrewdness – but also in “eloquence of speech, elevation of mind, contempt of lucre, and fairness…”.

The Romans also admired him, although less enthusiastic about his cultural achievements. Cornelius Nepos included him in his Book o Great Commanders, but found it necessary to excuse his reputation as a musician and dancer on the grounds that the Greeks had a fondness for these pursuits. He “praises without reservation Epaminondas’ intellectual and athletic prowess, and finds he meets roman standards of temperance, prudence and seriousness….. and was such a lover of truth that he never lied, even in jest.” .

He died in 362, in a battle which once again defeated the Spartans, but also ended Epaminondas’ own life.

This could be my kind of guy – accomplished, virtuous, a democrat and liberator – and good-looking. Except that he lived about two millennia too soon, he could easily be seen as a great Renaissance man. My only objection? Surely he’s just too good to be true. Yet this is the picture that comes down to us from the ancients.

And to think that men of this calibre are not permitted to serve openly in the US army.

(Source: The material above condenses a passage from “Homosexuality & Civilization” by Louis Crompton, which makes an excellent and stimulating introduction to the history of homosexuality.)

Some Albatross Same- sex Parents

A key part of the argument against homoerotic relationships, fundamental to the Catholic Magisterium, to the religious opposition more generally, and to the supporters of so-called “traditional” marriage, is that same sex relationships are somehow “unnatural”, “against natural law”. This claim is entirely without foundation. What these groups have in common, apart from their conclusion, is a total disregard for the evidence.  Some research into the Laysan albatross neatly illustrates this.  The disregard of the need for evidence does not only apply to claims for natural law: exactly the same charge can be made against Vatican claims that "homosexuals" are motivated solely by  -indulgence, and that homosexual "acts" lead one away from God - claims that likewise do not stand up to scrutiny. For now, though, I am concerned only about the problem as it applies to the argument from natural law

All albatrosses are large birds nesting in isolated colonies free from natural predators, which makes them easy to study (the birds are trusting and allow researchers to get up real close and personal). Much of their behaviour is well-known. For instance, in one colony at Kaena Point, Hawaii, there are about 120 breeding pairs, who gather for mating every November. They form long-term partnerships, and after copulation, lay a single egg, which they incubate in shifts, taking turns to leave the nests for weeks at a time to feed at sea. They form long-lasting, often life- long pairs, and were praised by former US first lady Laura Bush for their commitment to each other, and the example they offered as icons of monogamy. The obvious assumption that these monogamous pairs represent one male and one female in a neat nuclear family, though, turns out to be false. One third of the pairs are female couples, some of whom had nested together every year since right back to the start of data collection – 19 years.

Ornithologist Lindsay C Young  has been studying this albatross colony since 2003, as part of her doctoral dissertation.  She says that the discovery of so many female pairs forced her to question assumptions she didn’t even know she was making.  This in itself was something of a breakthrough: observations of same sex behaviour or relationships in the animal world are not new, but too often in the past, biologists have simply ignored them, or attempted to explain these observations as aberrations.

Joan Roughgarden quotes one notable scholar who claimed in 2000, at the end of a long and distinguished career,  that  “When animals have access to members of the the opposite sex, homosexuality is virtually unknown in nature, with some rare exceptions in primates”.

But just the previous year, Bruce Bagemihl had published a book reviewing published academic research into over three hundred vertebrate species which engage in same-sex courtship and genital contact. In some of these, homosexual activity is even more frequent than heterosexual intercourse.

In the case of the albatrosses though, the female pairs Young studied displayed same-sex relationships – not same-sex activity. They were female couples, conscientious parents, and engaged in just about all the activities together that other couples do – except for physical sexual intercourse. Instead, they would find a male albatross purely for copulation so that they could produce a fertilized egg.

As female pairs, these couples were physically capable of producing twice the number of eggs that other pairs could. Each bird is capable of producing only one egg each year, and so most nests hold only one egg. Yet obrsevers have frequently noted  that some nests contain two eggs, in what the biologists call a “supernormal clutch”. Early attempts at explanations speculated that perhaps some individual brds were after all capable of laying two eggs, or that some inexperienced younger females were inadvertently “dumping” their eggs in the wrong nests.. Harvey Fisher, he researcher who proposed this dumping hypothesis in 1968, after seven years of daily observations, justified his conclusion in part with the observation that “after all, promiscuity, polygamy and polyandry are unknown in this species”.

It simply had not occurred to anyone to consider that the nest might hold two females.

That was until Brenda Zaun, a biologist studying Laysan albatrosses forty years later, observed that year after year, it was the same nests which yielded double eggs. When she sent feathers from a sample of the two-egg breeding pairs and sent them to Lindsay Young  for laboratory DNA sex testing, Young simply disbelieved the finding that every brd was female, and assumed she had erred in the testing procedure.

She repeated the tests, and got the same result.. To be sure, she then went back to the field and sexed every bird in the colony, and found that 39 of 125 nests were of female – female couples: 19 where double eggs ahd been seen, and an additional 20 with single eggs.

This example is not about “lesbian” birds, or about avian “homosexual” intercourse. However, it does illustrate how easily even professional observers have in the past mistakenly applied heterosexist assumptions to their observations, which have led to completely false assumptions. Testing these assumptions against evidence leads to  very different conclusions.

The albatross female couples also illustrate how in the natural world, procreation and pair –bonding can be quite distinct. Albatross pairs, including female couples are monogamous, mutually devoted couples and careful parents: but in some cases, the physical act of copulation is only about fertilizing an egg and nothing more.

Although these albatrosses do not show signs of sexual activity by the female couples, many other species do. Bagemihl listed over three hundred such species in 1999, Joan Roughgarden and, Vasey and Sommer, have since listed many more, across all branches of the animal kingdom.  The evidence is clear: in the animal kingdom, same sex relationships and homoerotic sexual activity are no less “natural” than left-handedness.

This does not in itself make homosexuality morally “right”, but it does show that “natural law” cannot be used to argue that they are wrong. On sexual ethics, the “law of nature” is simply neutral.

Sources:

"Can Animals be Gay?" (New York Times)

Books:

Bagemihl, Bruce: Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions) Roughgarden, Joan: Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People Sommer, Volker and Vasey, Paul: Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective Also See Additional QTC Posts: The Wildlife Rainbow Queer Bonobos: Sex As Conflict Resolution Lesbian Lizards Bisexual Snails Exclusive Heterosexuality Unnatural?

The NOM Bus (crash) Tour, and Iowa

The disastrous bus smash that is NOM's tour around the country has reached Iowa. Box Turtle Bulletin has a report, noting the age of participants in the NOM rally, and also noting that here as elsewhere, the marriage supporters drew a larger crowd than opponents. 

This could seem remarkable, here in this rural, mid- western state where passions were so inflamed by last year's court judgement. But it will not have surprised anyone who has been watching the polls, as I have, ever since. This is the comment I posted on the site:

It’s worth reflecting on the record of opposition in Iowa since the court judgement was handed down. Immediately afterwards, opinion polls showed clearly that most Iowans were opposed – and immediately there were loud calls to start the process towards changing the state constitution.

Some months later, an important poll showed that Iowans remained opposed – but did not want the constitution tinkered with. The most recent poll showed that most Iowans now support marriage equality.

In two election cycles – one special election last year, and in this year’s GOP primaries for the state legislature, NOM poured money into campaigns for candidates promising to initiate a ballot to overturn marriage equality – and reports were that their candidates lost big time.

In Iowa, NOM has lost already, and marriage is safe.

More generally, this example shows that even in the rural mid-west, once people have lived with marriage equality for a while, they get used to it and get on with their lives – just as they did earlier with interracial marriage.

Just a Phase I’m Going Through

( I came across this at Google images while looking for something completely different. It turned out to be from the always commendable Presbyterian site, Shuck & Jive. Thanks, Shuck.)