Scottish Political Leader Challenges Catholic Church on Claims That Gays Die Early

The Roman Catholic Church is engaged in literally a world wide anti-gay jihad which spans the globe from Australia, to America to the Scottish highlands.  Two things mark the Catholic Church's anti-gay agenda: (i) the Church hierarchy will resort to any and all lies and deceptions to further its cause and (ii) constant explosions of new sex abuse scandals litter the path of the hierarchy, especially of late in Australia.  By I digress.  In Scotland where the government plans to move forward with same sex marriage legislation, the Church leadership seems to be often blindly quoting the long discredited works of Paul Cameron.  Patrick Harvie (pictured at left), co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party, seems to have at last lost patience with the Church's incessant lies and has challenged a Church spokesman to back up his Cameron based lies.  While the Church claims that it will respond to the challenge, it truth it cannot - because there is no credible research to back up claims that gays die 12-20 years younger than their straight counterparts.  Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

A prominent lawmaker in Scotland is demanding the Catholic Church prove its allegations that gay people die 12-20 years earlier than straight people. Patrick Harvie (image, right), co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party, challenged Peter Kearney, spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Scotland after Kearney’s flagrantly false and offensive comments last week.

“There is a link between same-sex sexual practice and early death,” Kearney said, according to a Pink News report in which Kearney added:

“That’s not something that the Catholic Church believes; there is an overwhelming body of medical evidence to suggest that. One study has shown that the life expectancy of a practising homosexual man will be reduced by something between 12 and 20 years.

Harvie, in an open letter to Kearney, writes:

“Whether this line of argument has any bearing on the same sex marriage debate is unclear; I am sure you were not implying that poor health should be a legal barrier to marriage or civil partnership for anyone, regardless of their sexuality.

“However it is important that those of us in the privileged and powerful position of speaking on these issues in the national media don’t confuse proper scientific evidence with some of the distortions which circulate online or in the wilder imaginations of some campaigners in the very polarised debate in the US.

“I am sure that you will be aware of some of the studies which have been misused in this way. The work of the avowedly anti-gay campaigner Paul Cameron for example, has been thoroughly discredited by the American and Canadian Psychological Associations and by the American Sociological Association.

Pink News, which notes the Catholic Church has promised a response next week, adds:

Jack Drescher, a member of the World Health Organisation’s Working Group on the Classification of Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health told the Scotsman: “There are no reputable scientific studies that show gay men, in general, die earlier than heterosexual men. Unfortunately, there are individuals known to oppose gay civil rights who create their own ‘data’ and reach questionable conclusions about gay men’s lifespans.