Date sent: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 20:40:26 -0500 Subject: Gay rights supporters hit back at Pope Originally to: GLB* News and Information List Send responses ONLY to Stephen Davis The Reuter Library Report February 21, 1994, Monday, BC cycle GAY RIGHTS SUPPORTERS HIT BACK AT POPE Homosexuals and their supporters hit back at Pope John Paul on Monday for condemning a European Parliament resolution to allow gays to marry and adopt children. ''This is a new example of the Vatican's totally reactionary position on moral questions,'' said Claudia Roth, the German Greens member of parliament who drafted the resolution. Roth spoke of ''papal hysteria'' that would encourage violence against homosexuals by portraying them as demons. The Pope, in a direct attack on the European Parliament on Sunday, said it had erred by ''inappropriately conferring an institutional value on deviant behaviour.'' ''(The Pope's response) to the rapid changes in Western society belongs in the Middle Ages, a period which lived its darkest hours during the Inquisition,'' Roth said in a statement. The Pope told pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square during his weekly address: ''With this resolution, the European Parliament is asking that a moral disorder be legitimised.'' His call for European countries to reject the resolution won support from conservative Roman Catholics. ''A relationship between two men or two women cannot make up a real family. More to the point, you cannot grant such a union the right to adopt children who do not have a family,'' he said. Roth said: ''This papal hysteria shows the need for the European Parliament to adopt a clear position in the area of human rights...'' Alessandro Pilotti, spokesman for the Liberal and Radical Youth Movement of the European Union, called the Pope's condemnation ''absurd, dangerous and unacceptable.'' ''The Pope's message shows contempt for fundamental civil rights,'' Pilotti said in a statement. Arci Gay, Italy's largest militant homosexual group, accused the Pope of ''homophobic racism.'' It threatened to urge Italy's three million homosexuals to boycott next month's national elections in protest against what they said was papal interference. The Feburary 8 resolution, which is not binding on European Union states, calls for an end to the prosecution of homosexuality and to discrimination under the law. Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli said he was surprised by the fuss because it was inconceivable that the Pope would take any other stand on the issue. He told the newspaper Il Messaggero homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children, adding: ''What a person does in bed is noone else's business.'' Roth has defended the call for homosexual couples to be allowed to adopt children, saying they were just as able to provide an upbringing in a loving atmosphere. She said studies had shown that children brought up in homosexual families or by homosexual couples received a good education and did not necessarily become homosexuals. The Pope rejected this, declaring: ''These children are greatly endangered, greatly harmed, because in this so-called substitute family they will not have a father and a mother but two fathers or two mothers.'' He said the church was against ''unjust discrimination'' against people with homosexual tendencies but added: ''What is not morally admissible is the juridical approval of homosexual practices.'' The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual tendencies are not sinful but homosexual behaviour is. Homosexuals can play a full part in church activity only if they abstain from sex. ___ Thomas W. Holt, Jr | Alias: Gwyn | Internet Mail: Avcholt@Amber.Indstate.Edu Indiana State Univ | Audio-Visual Technical Coordinator | Work: 812-237-3956 Snail-mail: 609 South 6th St, Terre Haute IN 47807-4313 | Home: 812-234-2814 Queer Resources Directory: FTP,WAIS,Gopher,WWW,FTP-Mail via Vector.Casti.Com I know I am, but what are you?