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January 08, 2009

Queerly Canadian #3: The Pope's queer ideas

Posted by Cate Simpson at 11:45 AM ET

Pope Benedict made some waves last month with his Christmas address for saying, amongst other things, that homosexuality and transsexuality were liable to cause the "self-destruction" of the human race. It hasn't so far, but perhaps he means sometime in the future we'll reach a sort of trans critical mass and one Friday night at 2am, an especially loud Church Street drag queen will tip us over into the gender apocalypse.

The Pope also briefly compared the "protection" of humanity from homosexuality to the protection of the rainforest. Aside from being a curiously outdated approach to the climate change concerns of the present decade (when was the last time anybody said "rainforest"? Do we even have any rainforests left?) I think there may be in this the seeds of how the Catholic Church and the homos can finally live together. It's called "queer offsetting."

As with the (somewhat dubious) practice of carbon offsetting, in which you arrange for some trees to be planted to make up for the damage to the environment by your carbon-belching SUV, queer offsetting would require queers to plant an appropriate number of trees every time their homosexuality impacts the world around them. So, for instance, an overly camp Christmas pantomime might warrant two or three, and when Pride Week brings all of downtown to a standstill someone better be out there planting a forest.

Or maybe the Catholic Church should stop hiding behind rhetoric about the end of days, admit that "tolerance" is no substitute for acceptance, and turn its attention to something that matters.

Cate Simpson is a freelance journalist and the web editor for Shameless magazine. She lives in Toronto.

More entries on: Queerly Canadian

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Next: Rinky-dink ink tinkering isn't the answer

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Reader comments:

Hey Cate,

You might want to think about this one: if guys only have sex with guys, and girls with girls, will there be any babies from that? As far as I know, the answer would be no. So if every guy and girl started having sex with their own, I would have to say it's pretty self-destructive for the human race, as there would be no more human race, esp. since those left would be dying off much quicker from STD's which are far more prevalent with a homosexual lifestyle.
So next time check your facts and use your brain before making a public show of ignorance, and you'll do the whole world a favour.

Posted by: Nick at January 8, 2009 05:17 PM

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nick? if "every guy and girl started having sex with their own", it would be a miracle in and of itself. grow up...it's not going to happen.

also? check your STD facts. HIV is on the rise amongst straight folk.

talk about a public show of ignorance...

Posted by: evan at January 8, 2009 09:22 PM

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HIV is on the rise amongst straight folk.

Yeah, well, you started it.
[/sarcasm]

Posted by: Nack at January 9, 2009 01:57 AM

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who is this "you"? you're making sweeping assumptions about my identity and my sex life.

Posted by: evan at January 9, 2009 10:36 AM

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Well, I think we'll have to wait for the entire population to become practicing homosexuals and watch quietly as the human race disappears.

Posted by: Luc Mitchell at January 10, 2009 01:02 PM

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