GIVE EQUAL PROTECTION OF MARRIAGE TO ALL

I wrote yesterday about the foolish statement of Pope Benedict saying that homosexual acts constituted as grave a danger as global warming.

I thought Benedict was more thoughtful than his statement indicates. But this seems to be the way with all churchmen, no matter the denomination. Sex "morality" is most central to their teachings. Witness the actions of some authorities in the LDS Church in helping bigots pass Proposition 8 in California which bans marriage other than between a man and a woman.

Equal protection has no place in small minds. However, marriage is a legal contract regulated by the state. It is not governed by religious institutions. To deny the legal protections of marriage to two men or two women flaunts the notion of equal protection under the law. If a state allows marriage for a heterosexual couple, how can it deny the same right to a homosexual pair?

Yet for Benedict as well as for other religious authorities, equal protection means little. All they care about is their warped sense of sexual transgressions. Morality for them is boiled down to observance of sexual "norms." No matter that many of these same people who complain the loudest about sexual "deviations" are in secret the worst offenders of their own principles.

There is a recognized long-standing legal axiom, false in one thing, false in all things. We can apply this axiom to Benedict and church teachings in general. Be careful of trusting anyone or any authority whose principles on sexual morality are so patently and hypocritical wrong.