Leader-in-Christ spouts more nonsense about religious freedom

He dresses like that … and people take him seriously?

It’s not only small-time religious kooks and cranks who use ignorance and demagogy to rally up their bases and push forth their intolerant bullshit. Apparently, this sort of mindlessness seeps all the way to the top, affecting the already addled minds of the Pope himself. Already in hot water for paying a visit to Britain (and by “paying a visit”, I mean bilking British folks out of £20 million, as if the Vatican couldn’t pay for their leader’s own travels), he chose to fuck the whole PR thing altogether and launched into an attack against the government’s imminent gay equality legislation that, in addition to basically consolidating all previous equality laws, would also go further in preventing employers from discriminating against gay employees, amongst other things.

It’s all sensible stuff, of course – until it filters through the minds of religious cranks, at which point the sanity is removed and it somehow mutates into an affront on religious freedom. (Yes, that again.)

“Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society,” he wrote. “Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.

“In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.” In a separate warning to any bishop thinking of deviating from the Vatican’s lead on such controversial issues, Pope Benedict also reiterated the need for the Church to “speak with a united voice”.

“In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate,” he said. s“It is the truth revealed through scripture and tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free.”

The Pope’s comments were a clear assault on the Equality Bill, which consolidates the past 40 years of equality legislation and aims to expand rules stopping employers from discriminating against gay employees because of their sexuality. Churches and religious organisations are currently exempt from the legislation, an exemption the Pope believes his bishops must make sure they maintain.

So, to recap all that twaddle: “discriminating against gays is a part of religious freedom, dissent from this opinion will be punished, the Church is the only source of The Truth^TM, and don’t tell me that religious organizations are already exempt in the bill because, uh, I’m blind and deaf”. Got that, folks?

Civil rights groups are already planning to launch protests against the Pope’s visit, contesting his pricetag and general ignorant idiocy. It’s a good thing to let cranks know that if all they have to say is intolerant crap, they can just stay home.