LONDON — More than 1,000 Roman Catholic priests have signed a letter voicing fears that legalization of same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom could threaten religious freedom in a way last seen during “centuries of persecution” of Roman Catholics in England.
The letter, published Saturday in London’s Daily Telegraph, said marriage equality for gays and lesbians would “severely restrict” Catholics’ ability to practice and speak publicly about their faith, and may even lead to Catholics being excluded from jobs.
“After centuries of persecution, Catholics have, in recent times, been able to be members of the professions and participate fully in the life of this country.“Legislation for same-sex marriage will have many legal consequences, severely restricting the ability of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools, charitable institutions or places of worship. It is meaningless to argue that Catholics and others may still teach their beliefs about marriage in schools and other arenas if they are also expected to uphold the opposite view at the same time.”
The letter, which describes “traditional” marriage as “the foundation and basic building block of our society,” and asserts that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to legalize same-ex marriage could lead to Catholics being imprisoned for expressing their religious beliefs in schools, hospitals, prisons and the military.
“We urge Members of Parliament not to be afraid to reject this legislation now that its consequences are more clear,” it states.
The letter, signed by 1,054 priests, as well as 13 bishops, abbots and other senior Catholic figures, is believed to be one of the biggest open letters of its type ever written, said the Telegraph.
The British government announced in December that it plans to introduce same-sex marriage before the next general election in 2015.
A spokesman for the Department for Education said that the marriage proposal would “not change anything about teaching in schools” and teachers would “continue to be able to express their own, personal beliefs about marriage.”
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British government publishes bill to legalize same-sex marriage
Cameron's support for marriage equality improves popularity among LGBT voters
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British politician warns that same-sex marriage will turn UK into Nazi society
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Good for them pedophiles.
Fine! They don’t have to endorse it. But get your beliefs out of my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So sick of this.
Oppose it…can I sign some letters opposing child molestation too?
God said to love and respect everyone in the Book of St. Matthew. Catholics, you need to wise up.
Someone who has taken a vow of celibacy cannot know the meaning of marriage. The challenges, the intimacy, and the union between two people.
Who gives a fuck what these assholes think? Fuck them and their pedophiliac fraternity!
and yet they molest little boys
fine, but stop shaggin kids!!! .
Can they PLEASE keep THEIR beliefs out of MY home!!
No same-sex marriage. Liberal activities with alter boys though!
But pediphillia is ok
hypocrites, pedophiles, and misogynists; who cares what they think?
Hmmm… as an ex-Cath, maybe I’ll sign a protest letter against Catholicism.
Big deal… then don’t perform them or have one… I could care less what the Catholic church says…
I say if they wanna shove their beliefs down our throats, then we should shove our lifestyle down theirs. I wonder who’d that piss off…
Is this really news?
So who opposes them covering up for the pedophiles within their church??
so what?
yeah…still don’t care..
What is this I don’t even…
i wish they would sign 100 letters admitting there are pedophiles in the church
When are they going to sign a petition against pedophilia? Or maybe they should be signing pledges stating they will no longer be active in the pedophilia lifestyle.
What a surprise!!!! Like that has any credibility!!
If they dont want to do the ceremeny – dont, but if they dont accept it when it becomes law, they cant claim tax benefits.
WTF, after the Catholic church being the first persecutor for centuries they have the nerve of talking about being persecuted?
The Pope should be put on a stretching rack on Christopher Street and there should be an open invitation for anybody who wants to to come by and give him the whack the old Hitler Jugend so richly deserves. Fuckin’ Nazinger gay-bashing bigot!
The Catholic Church today is mired in scandal, including shady financial dealings, pedophilia, and nuns who have been raped or have had abortions.Clergymen who commit pedophilia are often merely transferred or reprimanded by their superiors, who often cover up the crimes to spare the Church public humiliation and the need to pay large financial damages to the victims.
Baptism, practiced by Catholics and other forms of Christianity, is a ritual that was initiated by conviction and then became tradition. Although Jesus baptized only adults, those baptized today have no say whatsoever about the matter, since they are usually infants. Their basic right to decide is preempted by others (generally their parents). Thus baptism as practiced today is imposed rather than an exercise of free choice.
Islamic theocracies in many countries deny basic rights to women and mete out horrifying punishments to those who violate rigid, stultifying dress codes enforced by “dress police.” Young girls who run away from old men they have been forced to marry are stoned or publicly flogged, while those who dare to question the ruling regime, make statements against Islam, or deny the existence of Allah risk execution or life imprisonment.
The holy books of the world’s major monotheistic religions contain many passages that incite violence or excuse the need to maim and kill under certain conditions. In wars, both sides claim to have God on their side, and members of their respective clergy send young men off to fight with religious blessings.
In these examples, religions claiming to be guardians of moral values and truth are denying basic human rights, encouraging violence, practicing double standards, committing crimes against humanity, and deceiving the faithful.
By apostatizing, you embrace truth and human rights, reject hypocrisy and double standards, and condemn the crimes and cover-ups committed and rationalized under the guise of religious conviction. In many cases, those who commit these acts or who shield those who do, never suffer consequences for the choices they have made. Let your apostasy be the consequence they deserve!
When you disassociate yourself from a religious institution whose policies you deplore, apostasy is amply justified. Indeed, you MUST apostatize if you are to honor your values as an individual exercising free choice.
Here you can download apostasy forms.
http://www.apostasie.org/download.php?list.3
A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts
The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—
There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month.
To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten in the moon;
And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;
Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;
And east rushes west and west rushes down,
No matter. The grass is full
And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,
You become a self that fills the four corners of night.
The red cat hides away in the fur-light
And there you are humped high, humped up,
You are humped higher and higher, black as stone—
You sit with your head like a carving in space
And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.
Wallace Steven
The full text of the “Reichskonkordat,” the political treaty between the Vatican and Adolf Hitler.
Scott Rose At the link below is the full text of the “Reichskonkordat,” the political treaty between the Vatican and Adolf Hitler. At the time this treaty was signed, the anti-Jewish racial laws were already in force in Nazi Germany:Here is an example of what is in the treaty:Article 3In order to foster good relations between the Holy See and the German Reich, an apostolic nuncio will reside in the capital of the German Reich and an ambassador of the German Reich at the Holy See.http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showkb.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=752&kb_id=1211
We need clarity in public understanding of the criminal Catholic Church’s motivations. Worldwide, the Church still has a business plan of stigmatizing gays and lesbians in society, in order to get enough of them to sign up for lifetimes of near slave labor as low-level priests and nuns. That is how the rotting, corrupted turds at the top of the Church hierarchy continue to live off the fat of the land. Without that cheap labor from priests and nuns, the “leaders” could not live as they do; and they do continue to 1) encourage over-reproduction; and 2) stigmatize gays and lesbians, because those two things help them trap victims in lifetimes of near slave labor. Then we also need clarity of public understanding about what the Catholic Church did to homosexuals before and during the era of the Holocaust. There were as many gay victims of the Holocaust as there were, because of the Church’s involvement in demonizing them and getting them deported to concentration camps. All over Europe, you can find memorials to the gay victims — but the Catholic Church has never acknowledged its role in getting those gay victims sent to their deaths. We must better organize, to get the rest of society to demand along with us, that the Church acknowledge its role in getting gay Holocaust victims murdered.
Shocker!
“traditional” marriage as “the foundation and basic building block of our society,”.
How does molesting our children and human trafficking benefit our society?
The Catholic Church is the corporation more intolerant murderous and destructive that historically has existed.
Their ideology is an ideology of hatred and war and an altarpiece of lies, cheating, contradictions, deceits and absurdities built for the sole purpose of annulling denigrating the intelligence and the reason.
The Christian morality is like chloroform that neutralizes the pleasure and the imagination, to make our bodies our nearest enemy and to switch the truth into submission.
The Papacy is an emissary of torture and lies, a puppet of the interests of the fascist Vatican state.
The higher clergy is a band of social parasites, eager of power and plunder.
The faithful Catholics are a humanity deceived, for whom I have solidarity and compassion.
All victims of religious terrorism are a definitive proof of its guilt.
The Catholic Church has put to death millions of individuals, has collaborated to the spread of HIV / AIDS per their negative to authorize Catholics the use of condoms.
They do practice Symbiotic relationships of all kinds of totalitarianism, they encourage them, they justify and prostitutes before them.
They bless the murderers and tyrants.
They proclaimed holy crusades against women and men who have doubted its truth.
They enslave the weak, flatter the generals and the leaders, promote hatred of the body, happiness and pleasure, insult the intelligence and intended to impose its absurd and primitive theology.
They use gender hierarchies, relationships and feelings, according to the sinister moral they practice.
They impose their phobias as sacred commandments, systematically attacking individual and collective freedoms.
They plunder the people, relentlessly and with impunity, through its diplomatic agreements, concordats and their alliances with political power.
They abuse children, fornicate with them, they are lying and abusing the humanity.
They discriminate, they cover up for pedophiles.
They created the Inquisition.
They light fires that have not yet ceased to burn.
They despise science and knowledge.
They torture, massacre and hide the historical truth.
They manipulate the collective memory.
They perpetuate their ideology, injecting it into children’s minds. And abetting, conspiracy, falsifying and using violence to impose their pathological delusions.
look at all the fucks I give =|
just remember, people… separation of church and state. Remind your congress(wo)men of that fact… and don’t stop bugging them.
These ignorant priests are going to negate the many good things the Catholic Church has done in the past/present, particularly in the area of social justice.
… but they are NOT opposed to pedophilia??????? Violation is ok for them????? Wow… smh
And the same 1000 quietly hide their child porn.
Not to be crass but I wonder how many of these priests are currently under investigation for child molestation. I can’t believe they have successfully gotten the negativity taken from themselves and put it on the gay community – and no one says anything!
That’s just fine….they can keep claiming to be ‘celibate’ and continue as normal……
News flash: marriage exists in more than one religion.
Also, all those people have no life if they spend all their time calling “wolf” when they’re busy prosecuting others, including the LGBTQ community.
Their view is only relevant within their belief – couldn’t care less what they think personally.
This Church is headed for Extinction…. And I can’t wait…
Well then they certainly shouldn’t gay marry. Oh that’s right their celibate and only molest children
Because they believe in more of a harem concept with sex.
*persecuting
Conversely, if they embraced same-sex marriage, then they would have both more business and, for the majority of them, personal bliss. When did religious freedom come to mean the exercise of religious bigotry?
and, how many are under duress or threat of expulsion if they don’t sign the letter?
I’m sure not a single one of them was coerced by their bishop. . .
How about we sign a letter opposing pedophilia in the priesthood?
Nice of them to express their opinions, but THAT’S ALL IT IS–someone else’s opinoin.
So, who cares?? It’s the law in some of the land.
so wait…. they’re afriad of being treated differently because of another group’s rights? oh…… sure… no, no, no…. that makes total fucking sense.
Funny, we don’t see this sort of commitment to exposing the international child pedophilia rings these priests perpetrate, I somehow think their perverted influences will damage society a little more the queer marriage, don’t you?
The real question is – how many of those prefer to quietly have sexual contact with altar boys?
Who gives a shit what they think? They are prohibited from marrying, too!
It’s okay for them to oppose same sex marriage but its also okay for them to practice child abuse
Yeah, who gives a shit.
we’re not asking them to perform same sex marriage, but until they PAY TAXES, they have no right to influence LAWS AGAINST IT!!
love is not blind, it is unconditional,period makes one ponder why they r on their knees so much…lol
Having worked in the Roman Church for 38 years, I have known many, many priests and bishops. I know at least 70% of them are maladjusted gays, who cannot deal with their own sexuality. Several have boyfriends on the side, and preach against gays from the pulpit. I have known many good priests who are gay and celebate. Most priests I have known remain adolescents throughout their lives.
Let start a letter to sign for them to get taxed, they try an blatantly force there believe in politics. That an they are the largest criminal organization on the planet.
I want to have gay sex with that letter.
perhaps in part they’re obeying their bishops … perhaps in another part they’re afraid their boyfriends will rebel if same-gender marriage becomes legal!
I thought priests couldn’t get married at all? If traditional marriage is such a cornerstone of our society, how do priests explain their centuries old avoidance? I’m sure they have their reasons, just like gays have reasons we want to marry. I have to say, it really doesn’t make sense to me. I have no occasion really to read braille. As a result, I have no opinion on the design of Braille books. I think the same logic should apply here. But I may be a little slow. LOL
Of course…if they as Catholic priests are denied marriage, why should anybody else in their opinion be allowed to marry.
i am catholic BUT i dont believe in the bs they spew. i believe there is a God who loves everyone equally and does not judge love between to people..and yes everyone is right regarding the pediphiles ..they have loadas of those BUT not marriage? and i dont say Gay marriage because MARRIAGE IS MARRIAGE!!!
While taking one in the ass. Former catholic here!
I am Pennsylvania Dutch of Mennonite descent and Ironically my fled to this Country in the 1790′s escape these same Idiots!!!
Same sex marriage is bad but pedophilia is rewarded in the Catholic Church. Wow those are people I would take seriously
Now if they could only get that many priests to sign a letter opposing their own same sex molestation…
who at this point can even take them remotely serious?
Here is the point where I act surprised..
So, let them stay sing
Who cares?
They are irrelevant.
of course they would, but its about laws not religion. i dont get how they are failing to see it.
Their letter can be read with substituting words like Catholics & Catholic Church with words like LGBTQ+ community, gays, lesbians, etc. We, the members of the LGBTQ+ community are the ones who have been persecuted and even killed by the Catholic Church and other religious groups over the centuries. Proposing to continue our persecution and the Catholic Church’s “right” to persecute us because we feel our voices must be heard and our lives & lifestyle respected, is ludicrous.
Yeah…. NOT, like the sick, pedophile priests are a problem, at all!!?¿?
I have a list of about 3x that who have been excommunicated or even convicted of abusing people or even the “catholic church” itself.
I’m surprised these kid fuckers have time!
Fuckin’ Bastards! They need to clean their own, damn house… before they even try to clean ours’!
Joshua David: Guy, the first word is LONDON, meaning the Constitution doesn’t apply there.
Well, it’s not like they’ve ever been leaders in the are of kindness, loving, and equal treatment in the world. No surprise there. But then, I’m not Catholic and don’t plan for a Catholic wedding. :-)
No surprise here.
Well would one expect them to agree with same sex marriage, when they obviosly took an oath not to marry and further more; having sex with minors who are of the same sex as themselves seemingly lets off the hook. Is it just me that sees this rationale? Seriously, just wondering. Imagine a world where you were morally obligated to marry the individual “you” deflowered. Think about it. Sick fuckers out here…. Straight mom talk.
Good they can take their church and go fuck themselves. I guess fucking little boys is so much more proper and godly.
The CATHOLIC CONSPIRACY of HATE and BIGOTRY rears its historically UGLY HEAD in another archaic document that was already OBSOLETE the moment they signed it.
http://alamoministries.com/content/english/Antichrist/nazigallery/photogallery.html
What is the point? They are rapidly losing all cultural relevance. I bet we could get more signatures than that opposing the catholic church.
Did they sign a letter saying they won’t touch lil alter boys booties nomore.
Oh goodness! What would Jesus Do? I understand he was a big proponent of exclusion too. . . Wait, no, that was Hitler. If memory serves, the pope used to be a member of Hitler’s youth, so it’s familiar territory.
The Catholic Church is still losing followers…more and more people are turning against Catholicism because they are now discovering that they were, and always been a shady group!!
How cute!! The catholic cult is trying to remain relevant. When they stop hating and oppressing everyone, maybe I will care…Oh wait, not I won’t Close these idiots down
We need a letter to oppose those genocidal Pope Nazinger sheeple
Who cares
They hide same sex rape but oppose same sex love. How cute!
Bunch of dorks.
They are irrelevant thats all
Who cares?
Homo lovers.
Whatever.
boo
thats rich, considering Catholic priests are child molesters and have absolutely no right to talk!
More than 1000 non-Catholics could give a shit. The church is a pedophile ring.
how many of them have molested kids?
Where’s the news in this? Religeon has been the source of persecution since they first got organized. People try to keep others down to make themselves feel bigger, when the truth is – it has the exact oposite effect on your soul. Fear of the unknown wil ensure you remain a small person.
Did they sign the opposing same-or-opposite sex molestation letter? Let me know when THAT happens. #beginswithyou
New world new times. They will be forgotten if they don’t keep up.
No one takes priests seriously anymore. As usual they are always the last to know.
it wasnt so long ago the church was opposing co-ed classrooms as well. they just are so afraid that they hang on to their superstitions and cant accept change. the major problem is that they actually have influence from very high income places.
Where is the letter for me to sign…
I oppose them and the church’s stance on many things
Of course they signed it. The Pope essentially ordered them to.
Right on, Irv Englander … absolutely correct. I guess they have to give up thinking for themselves.
What did you expect????
Who gives a shit what they think? Really?
and millions if not billions around the world would sign a petition to stop the molestation of children by catholic priests and the catholic churches way of hiding this abuse so yeah we will take notice of these priests not fucking likely!
Big deal.
That’s because it would take away their chance at potential alter boys
Uhm, marriage equality is a CIVIL MATTER! So I say to them, “Who asked you!”
kay? more than a Million people are for same-sex marriage
We must get serious and start a petition asking the government to suspend and/or revoke the
Catholic Church tax exemption status as they continue doing politics. If they want to do politics good, but PAY TAXES.
@Toly. I second the motion. The Catholic Church is losing relevancy and influence. They elected a Nazi as their leader for cryin’ out loud. This is just a smoke screen to hide their own sins and failures. Not to worry.
the church is dying and it’s their own fault.
Their fears are unfounded. Period.
Lots and lots and lots of catholic in Paris today against same sex marriage… sad day in France..
http://puisquecestlaguerre.wordpress.com/
But they can rape boys!
There is no god in their church. Sad
why do we even care what they think or put out? why is this even news? May the reap all that they deserve for their hate and failure to love people.
could get at least ten times as many signatures of gays again Catholics.
Fuck ‘em. Fuck the church, fuck the clergy, and brick-fuck the pope. Fuck ‘em all. They have *no* moral authority, they deserve no deference.
Just a question, as my youth makes me ignorant, but aren’t catholic priests the ones who allegedy rape adolescent boys?
I wonder how many of them signed a letter saying it’s OK to abuse little boys? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…….
More than 100,000 normal people sign letter opposing pedophile priests.
i was sadly raised catholic til i stopped going at 15 and to me there are more important issues than gay marriage. how about they focus on helping feed the hungry, cloth the needy, protect our children, helping the less fortunate to me is all they and all religions should be doing. what a person does in the bedroom is sacred and pure whether it be heterosexual, or gay . When did we as people give our country and churches the right to rule our sex lives as long as no one is under the age of consent then its our business . the church and governments need to stay out of our sex lives.