Catholics

Why is it that whenever I talk to straight people about my opposition to marriage, I always find myself reassuring them that I am not judging their marriage or their choices?  They never feel the need to reassure me that they are not judging me when they talk about marriage or discuss who is engaged or any of the other choices they know very well I have consciously and deliberately ruled out of my life.  Straight privilege means never noticing that these conversations silence queerness by drowning it out with repetitive straight clichés.  

When a straight person tells me “I am a catholic,” it never occurs to them to reassure me that they disagree with their church’s views about sexuality or contraception or abortion or any of the other things I feel strongly about.  It never occurs to them to point out that they do not stand by the pope’s views about homosexuality.  It never occurs to them to point out that they do not stand by the church’s destruction of ancient and irretrievable books, its inquisitions, its crusades, its complicity with the holocaust and ongoing complicity with the AIDS crisis.  We are talking about the people who created the witch hunt, after all, why not at least pay lip service to this two thousand year abuse of power?  How much does an indulgence run these days, anyway? 

Yet when I say that I am opposed to marriage, I always find myself offering some comforting words to them so they know I am not opposed to their marriage.  I care about their feelings and our relationship.  I guess I am prioritizing the relationship over my ideas, which has its pro’s and con’s, but clearly the caring is not reciprocated.  Part of straight privilege is being comfortably certain that you will rarely be called upon to explain your relationship choices, or consider how your words, actions, beliefs, values and omissions might be painful for others. 

So the catholics now have a pope who has been a fanatical opponent of queer people since he was in the seminary.  We are Ratzinger’s favorite topic going way back in his hate-fueled career. This is the same guy who was protested by Queer Nation in NYC back in the late 80s.  He said in his 2008 year-end remarks that humanity needs protecting from the threats of homosexuality, transexuality and gender theory as much as the environment needs protection from destruction. It made me wonder who he is referring to with the word “humanity.”  In more than 20 years, this man has not moved an inch in his hatred and condemnation of queers.  Is the pope’s humanity the same humanity that led the Vatican to refuse to sign on to a UN proposal for nations around the world to decriminalize homosexuality?  Ratzinger extends open arms to a holocaust denier but looks the other way at state sponsored murder of homosexuals.  In Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Nigeria and Mauritania, homosexuality is punishable by death.  The catholic church has made it very clear that for the Vatican, condoning the actions of states that put homosexuals to death is preferable to signing on to legislation that would suggest condoning homosexuality. People are being punished and even put to death, but they won’t sign on to a resolution to stop the killing because that would also marginally condone homosexuality.  How dense do you need to be to continue to be a part of a church that calls itself pro-life yet holds this untenable position? 

Humanity looks quite different to me than it does to this pope.  Clearly, my personal humanity and the humanity of my kind is not in need of protection in the eyes of Ratzinger.   It sucks to realize you have a more expansive view of humanity than this little old turd who gets to be a world leader.  The humanity of four trans women who were murdered in Memphis, Tennessee over the course of 2008 is the kind of humanity I find deserving of protection.  The pope missed this fact in his year-end reflection.  One of the women, Duanna Johnson, was beaten by police officers in June, was planning a lawsuit against the city, and was mysteriously found dead in November. So where exactly does the threat of transgenderism show up?  What threat did these women pose to humanity?  The question I continue to ask myself is:  When do I start holding the catholics in my life accountable for the position of their pope and church?  When will I start to ask the catholics I know to have some integrity?  Identifying oneself with catholicism is not a neutral position any more than identifying with a political party, and a very mean-spirited and vicious one at that. Either stand up to this fuck or leave his church.  Whose humanity really needs protecting here?