Our 'Gay Lobby'

"It's true!" my husband exclaimed, reading something on his iPhone. "There's a gay lobby at the Vatican!"

"They haven't been much good at it," I groused. "Isn't a lobby supposed to represent and advocate for a group? I mean, just look at what lobbyists have done for industries that destroy the environment, roll back workers' rights, skew the electoral process in favor of big money, and generally do their damnedest to obliterate every shred of joy and dignity for the 99%. And there's a 'gay lobby' inside the Vatican? We are obviously not getting our money's worth."

Rather than listen to me launch into a full-on catalogue of the Vatican's crimes against humanity, especially gay humanity, my husband simply surrendered his phone to me. My eyes beheld the glory of the so-called liberal media and gobbled up the story.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Pope Francis, while speaking to a Latin American Catholic group, referenced a "gay lobby." Rumors of such a "lobby" have circulated since the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, a notorious homophobe whose pitiless malignancy has made him the subject of a new investigative book, Daniel Gawthrop's "The Trial of Pope Benedict: Joseph Ratzinger and the Vatican's Assault on Reason, Compassion, and Human Dignity."

But evidently, the word "lobby" in this case is a misnomer. As the L.A. Times reported, "The initial reporting has never been precise on what exactly was meant by a 'gay lobby,' but [daily newspaper] La Repubblica and [news magazine] Panorama went beyond saying there was merely a homosexual subculture at the Vatican. Rather, they raised allegations that high-ranking prelates were being blackmailed because they were gay."

That was enough to elicit another snort of derision. "Does it occur to these blockheads that if they don't criminalize being gay, then being gay won't be a pressure point for blackmailers? And besides..."

Well, and besides, it's just as Franco Grillini of Gaynet told the media: "That priests have sex with other men doesn't authorize anyone to speak about a gay lobby, because we're not talking about a group that represents the interests of the homosexual community but rather a group that is an integral part of a power structure - the Vatican - which is violently homophobic."

The honchos of the church group Francis addressed scribbled up a "synthesis" of his comments to them, and it was these notes that ended up being published, much to the group's horror. (If your Italian isn't too rusty you can read about that "synthesis" here.)

Here's a English translation of what Francis allegedly said (courtesy of the National Catholic Register):

"In the Curia there are holy people, truly, there are holy people. But there's also a current of corruption - there's that, too, it's true.... The 'gay lobby' is spoken of, and it's true, that's there... we need to see what we can do."

"A current of corruption." Because of the reported blackmail? Or because the queer Princes of the Church are gay? And how does that work, anyway? One certainly gets a sense from how the Church handled the pedophile priest crisis that, as an institution, the Catholic Church regards its princes not as human beings, exactly, but as somehow a trifle elevated above us mere mortals. So by what circular logic do the curia's theologians square "gay" with "Church higher-up?"

Maybe a clue can be found in the National Catholic Register's own reportage on the incident, which makes a clear attempt at objectivity and yet still manages to talk down to gays.

"Any sizeable group of people is going to have people who suffer from same-sex attraction (SSA) and some who act on it," the article reads.

"Get this," I told my husband. "We're suffering."

"Who, we sinners?"

"We gay sinners. We 'suffer' from 'SSA.' "

"Well," my husband noted, with a devilish smile, "isn't that the original meaning of the word 'passion?' Suffering? And isn't love a special suffering all its own?"

I have to say, he's got a point.

I found my way from there to a story posted at MSN in March that said in his pre-papal days, Francis has... get this!... backed civil unions for gay couples.

"In 2010, Argentina was about to legalize gay marriage and Bergogli suggested to his bishops that the Church should support the idea of gay civil unions as 'the lesser of two evils,' the article reported. "His attempt at a compromise was - unsurprisingly - overruled by the bishops."

Oh, my God. Those bishops.

The New York Times seconded the story of a "pragmatic" Catholic leader whose counsel fell on dogmatic ears. And now the guy is Pope? And he's automatically adopted the hate talk and moth-eaten excuses for oppression that formerly belonged to his predecessor?

"This," I told my husband, "is why I still think we need a better gay lobby. Especially in the Vatican."

"Right," he said. "But getting back to the whole passion thing..."

And there, dear reader, I must leave you for modesty's sake. No worries that anything further to report might be shared in a confessional, though. T'aint a sin if you're married.