German Catholic Bishops Declare Homosexuality Is “Normal”

For centuries the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has clung to ignorance based dogma when confronted with modern knowledge - e.g., the Church resisted knowledge that the Earth was not flat and revolved around the Sun - until a breaking point comes when it becomes no longer possible to cling to ignorance without losing all credibility.   Now, Germany's bishops may be poised to force the Vatican to finally begin discarding 12th century dogma on sex and sexuality, especially on the issue of homosexuality.  Right wing elements within the Church that seem to have a desperate need to condemn others (much like hypocrisy-filled evangelicals) will no doubt be foaming at the mouth and shrieking "heresy" as antiquated, myth based dogma confronts the reality of science and modern knowledge. I for one will never return to the Catholic Church in light of the continued cover ups of sexual abuse of children and minors.  That said, if the German bishops can help end the Church's harmful mistreatment of LGBT people, perhaps fewer lives will be harmed or destroyed by dogma that should have been jettisoned ages ago.  The Catholic News Service looks at this development: 

The German bishops’ conference has committed to “newly assessing” the universal Church’s teaching on homosexuality, sexual morality in general, as well as the sacraments of ordination and marriage. The commitment comes at the beginning of a controversial two-year “Synodal Process” by the German hierarchy.

Following consultations in Berlin last week, the chairman of the Marriage and Family Commission of the German bishops’ conference declared that the bishops agreed that homosexuality is a “normal form” of human sexual identity.

“The sexual preference of man expresses itself in puberty and assumes a hetero- or homosexual orientation,” Berlin’s Archbishop Heiner Koch asserted in a statement released by the bishops’ conference.

“Both belong to the normal forms of sexual predisposition, which cannot or should be be changed with the help of a specific socialization”.

Archbishop Koch, together with diocesan bishops Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück, Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz, Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, as well as several auxiliary bishops from the Faith and Family Commission of the bishops' conference consulted with a number of invited medical specialists, theologians and canon lawyers during the event.

Calling for a "solid discussion supported by human sciences and theology" Koch and Bode said that Amoris Laetitia already provides for noticeable "developments" of both Church doctrine and practice, adding that a sexual relationship for divorced and remarried couples after Amoris laetitia "was no longer always to be qualified as grave sin," and that wholesale “exclusion from the reception of the Eucharist" of such couples could no longer be justified.

And since sexual orientation was to be considered unchangeable, “any form of discrimination of persons with a homosexual orientation” was to be rejected, as was “explicitly stressed by Pope Francis” in Amoris laetitia.

According to a press release issued by the bishops, there was also discussion on whether the prohibition of homosexual acts by the Church’s magisterium was "still up-to-date" – and whether artificial contraception should still be condemend by the Chuch for “both married and unmarried” couples.

Coinciding with the opening of the Synodal Process, several diocesan and national Catholic associations funded by the German Church tax, or Kirchensteuer, have made public demands for changes to the Church’s teaching and practice on similar issues.

Calls for “reform” range from the blessing of homosexual unions to the priestly ordination of women . . . Agnes Wuckelt, deputy chairwoman of the German Catholic Women’s Association (KFD), demanded that women be ordained to the priesthood, asserting that a “sacramental ordination of women as deacons” would be a welcome first step in that direction.

Transgender Boy Wins Texas State Girl's Wrestling Title

Unlike I suspect most virulently anti-transgender Christofascists, I know a number of transgender individuals socially - on April 1, 2017, I will share the stage with two of them as I receive my "Outstanding Virginian" award in Richmond - and in my legal practice I regularly assist those who have gone through transition and sexual reassignment treatments to amend their birth certificates to conform to their reassigned sex.  What might be shocking to hate and bigotry driven Christofascists is the reality that these transgender individuals are just every day people trying to make it through life just like the rest of us, but who have struggled with a burden that few of us can fully imagine, the difficulty of which is underscored by the greatly increased suicide rate among transgender individuals.  They are not predators or perverts - indeed, most pedophiles and sexual predators are HETEROSEXUAL males. What is tragic is that what most drives these individuals to see death as preferable to living is the abuse, hatred and rejection they so often experience.  Especially form the self-anointed "godly folk."  

Why such hatred on the part of the Christofascists?  I have my theory that applies to the rest of the LGBT community: we threaten their house of cards religious belief system and their desire to have a set of "rules" that they can follow without ever having to think and make their own moral decisions. Our very existence reminds them that they may be building their lives on a myth and fantasy world and for that were are hated.  In this rush to banish us from the world so that they can pursue an unthinking and ignorance embracing existence, the Christofascists ignore the fact that once transitioned, transgender individuals are truly no longer their birth sex.  

Seeking to force transgender individuals to continue to pretend that they are still their birth sex leads to idiotic and ridiculous results.  A situation in Texas demonstrates the stupidity and bigotry of the Christofascist mindset.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post:

CYPRESS, Tex. — Booed and bloody, Mack Beggs dropped to his knees to celebrate. He was, after four wins and two days and all the rest, a state champion.

In a 12-2 victory against Chelsea Sanchez in the 110-pound classification, Beggs ended a highly controversial and dramatic weekend by becoming the first transgender participant to win a Class 6A girls’ state championship in Texas high school wrestling.

“I just witnessed my sport change,” a longtime Texas wrestling coach said moments after Beggs, a 17-year-old junior at Trinity High in Euless whose transition from girl to boy began two years ago and now includes testosterone injections, won a championship. The victory was seen as equal parts unavoidable — quick and noticeably strong, he entered the tournament unbeaten in 52 matches against girls — and contentious. The University Interscholastic League, which oversees sports in Texas public schools, ordered Beggs to continue competing in the girls’ division despite heavy uproar and a lawsuit earlier this month in a Travis County district court.

 [T]he tournament ended a week in which President Trump revoked federal guidelines allowing transgender students to use public restrooms that match their gender identity; it played out in a sprawling and culturally diverse state divided over a controversial “bathroom bill” similar to the one roiling North Carolina.

[W]ith Beggs cruising to a state championship, the hundreds here had no choice but to confront one of the nation’s most divisive and highly charged issues.

“She’s standing there holding her head high like she’s the winner,” said Patti Overstreet, a mother of a wrestler in the boys’ division. “She’s not winning. She’s cheating.”

James Baudhuin, the attorney suing the UIL over Beggs’s participation in the girls’ division, has a daughter who had wrestled against Beggs and, at least before the suit, was among his friends.

The ordeal grew complicated, on and off the mat. Baudhuin himself said he was so conflicted that, though he’d filed a petition to keep Beggs off the mat, he would nonetheless be cheering for Beggs to win the championship.

“The 16 girls who are in [Beggs’s] bracket have been put in a very, very unfair situation because of the grown-ups,” Baudhuin said. “To me, this is a complete abject failure of leadership and accountability from the people who regulate sports in Texas. They’re doing wrong by Mack, and not just these 15 girls but all the other girls she wrestled all year.”

Then there is the experience of Beggs himself. . . . . “I want to be somebody,” he said long before all this; before the boos and the cameras; before his coach whisked him on and off the arena floor to minimize Beggs’s visibility; and before a tournament run that sparked an arena, a state and a nation to confront a subject that previously could have been avoided. “Somebody who does something — not just a page in a book. I want to be a book.”

Two years ago, Beggs pointed a camera at himself and described a childhood of struggle and confusion — before, he said, discovering a word that simplified what he had experienced: transgender.

As time passed, attorney Baudhuin said, Beggs requested to wrestle against boys, though because UIL guidelines determine athletes’ gender based on their birth certificate, that request was declined (citing privacy, the UIL would not discuss that request or Beggs’s specific case) . . . 

All of this controversy and unpleasantness could have been avoided had the  University Interscholastic League accepted modern medical and mental health knowledge.  That, of course, would have outraged the Texas Christofascists who would have had to confront their willful ignorance and desperation to avoid thinking and accepting modernity.  

Seven Things One Needs to Know About Transgender Persons

I often have little good to say about conservative religious beliefs given the hate and division they inspire.  I often have even less good to say about Baptists in particular.  The general mindset of these Christofasists is exemplified by modern day Pharisee Franklin Graham whose latest message of hatred and division is that conservative Christians should be willing to die rather than give into accepting transgender rights and individuals.  Thus my shock and surprise to find a reasoned piece at Baptist News that looks at a pastor's efforts to educate himself and others as to the medical and scientific truths of what being transgender means and entails.  Even more shocking - but in  a pleasant way - is his statement that who is to say that the transgendered are not "made in the image of God."  Here are highlights of this piece that ought to be required reading for the falsely pious "godly folks":

I don’t know much about transgender issues, but I’m trying to learn. . . . But with the help of a pediatrician friend and a geneticist friend, I’m listening and trying to learn. This is hard, though, because understanding the transgender experience seems so far outside what I have ever contemplated before. And the more I learn, the more theological questions I face as well. This is hard, even for a pastor.

Here’s some of what I’m learning from my friends who have experience as medical professionals dealing with real people and real families:

1. Even though LGBT gets lumped together in one tagline, the T is quite different than the LG and B. “Lesbian,” “gay” and “bisexual” describe sexual orientation. “Transgender” describes gender identity. These are not the same thing. Sexual orientation is about whom we feel an attraction to and want to mate with; gender identity is about whether we identify as male or female.

2. What you see is not always what you get. For the vast majority of humanity, the presence of male or female genitalia corresponds to whether a person is male or female. What you see is what you are. But for a small part of humanity (something less than 1 percent), the visible parts and the inner identity do not line up. For example, it is possible to be born with male genitalia but female chromosomes or vice versa. And now brain research has demonstrated that it also is possible to be born with female genitalia, female chromosomes but a male brain. Most of us hit the jackpot upon birth with all three factors lining up like cherries on a slot machine: Our anatomy, chromosomes and brain cells all correspond as either male or female. But some people are born with variations in one or two of these indicators.

3. Stuff happens at birth that most of us never know. It’s not an everyday occurrence but it’s also not infrequent that babies are born with ambiguous or incomplete sexual anatomy. In the past, surgeons often made the decision about whether this child would be a boy or a girl, based on what was the easiest surgical fix. Today, much more thought is given to these life-changing decisions.

4. Transgender persons are not “transvestites.” Far too many of us make this mix-up, in part because the words sound similar and we have no real knowledge of either. Cross-dressers, identified in slang as “transvestites,” are people (typically men) who are happy with their gender but derive pleasure from occasionally dressing like the opposite gender. Cross-dressing is about something other than gender identity.

5. Transgender persons are not pedophiles. The typical profile of a pedophile is an adult male who identifies as heterosexual and most likely even is married. There is zero statistical evidence to link transgender persons to pedophilia.

6. Transgender persons hate all the attention they’re getting. The typical transgender person wants desperately not to attract attention. All this publicity and talk of bathroom habits is highly disconcerting to people who have spent their lives trying not to stand out or become the center of attention.

7. Transgender persons are the product of nature much more than nurture. Debate the origins of homosexuality if you’d like and what role nature vs. nurture plays. But for those who are transgender, nature undeniably plays a primary role. According to medical science, chromosomal variances occur within moments of conception, and anatomical development happens within the nine months in the womb. There is no nature vs. nurture argument, except in cases of brain development, which is an emerging field of study.

This last point in particular raises the largest of theological questions. If Christians really believe every person is created in the image of God, how can we damn a baby who comes from the womb with gender dysphoria? My pediatrician friend puts it this way: “We must believe that even if some people got a lower dose of a chromosome, or an enzyme, or a hormonal effect, that does not mean that they got a lower dose of God’s image.”

Would that the Christofascists and their eager political whores within the Republican Party would bother to educate themselves as this Dallas, Texas pastor is endeavoring to do.  Kudos to the piece's author.