More of the same old religious shite

It’s barely worth commenting on the fact that the centre-left majority on Rome was yesterday unable to approve either of two motions to grant some sort of legitimacy to civil unions. Neither would have made any difference but, given that we live in a world of political gestures as much as of acts, every litle helps. The left-left proposal, to establish a register for civil unions, was thrown out by Vatican groupies in the centre-left. The centre-left proposal (if such a feeble almost lifeless creature can be considered such), to ask the government to have another little think about the whole business, was also summarily thrown out, this time by the left (and everyone else). Once again, it’s a case of Vatican 1, Italy 0.

It wouldn’t be worth commenting at all if someone called Elio Sgreccia, archbishop and president of the pontifical academy for life (you couldn’t make it up), hadn’t decided to gloat. This grotesque old porker has announced that homosexuals shouldn’t be discrimated against, but simply steered as rapidly as possible into the arms of a psychologist for the necessary therapeutic help (presumably the kind undergone by crystal-meth-and-male-massage addict, Ted Haggard).

Let’s assume the bigoted toad isn’t being merely cynical, but actually believes what he says. Let’s give him the benefit of that doubt. In which case, it might be pertinent to ask ourselves whether a man who has almost certainly never had a meaningful relationship in his adult life with another human being (I’m being generous here), who has never engaged in any useful activity other than telling people what they should and shouldn’t do, who has never paid a penny in tax or known what it means to worry about a bill, who has evidently sublimated his healthy sexual instincts into the pleasures of the table – a man, in other words, who has served no useful biological or social purpose of any kind might not be a more suitable case for psychiatric treatment than, say, me. Or millions of others.

Physician, heal thyself.