Tag Archives: The Vatican

Gay History Month – October 20: ACT-UP Protests the UN, Dr. Evelyn Hooker, and the First Gay Wedding On TV May Surprise You.

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October 20th.

1958:  Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s is published in the November issue of Esquire Magazine. Gay men everywhere begin to name their cat “Cat”.

1969: The National Institutes of Mental Health released a report based on a study led by psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker stating that sodomy laws should be repealed.

Evelyn Hooker who applied for a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant to conduct research on “normal homosexuals.” presented the results of her research at the APA’s 1956 Annual Convention in Chicago.  After the NIMH’s report,  Dr. Hooker’s work on the homosexual subculture led to Hooker receiving an award in 1992 for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest from APA.  In her response to this honor, she shared the award with the gay and lesbian community and expressed pleasure that her research and her “long advocacy of a scientific view of homosexuality” could make their lives and the lives of their families better. She closed her address by reading from a letter she had received from a gay man thanking her for her work and saying, “I think you did it because you knew what love was when you saw it, and you knew that gay love was like all other love.”

1987 : Over fifty ACT-UP members are arrested during an act of civil disobedience protesting President Reagan’s lack of action to the AIDS epidemic.  In another demonstration a few days earlier about 150 people protested across the street from the United Nations building during the UN General Assembly’s first debate on AIDS. The General Assembly resolved to mobilize the entire UN system in the worldwide struggle against AIDS, under the leadership of the World Health Organization. 

1987: The US House of Representatives voted 368-47 to approve an amendment to withhold federal funding from any AIDS education organization which encourages homosexual activity. The senate approved a similar amendment the previous week by a vote of 94-2. It was introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms. / The US House Judiciary Committee voted 21-13 to approve a bill requiring the justice department to collect statistics on hate crimes, including anti-gay violence.

1991:  The first prime-time same-sex wedding on U.S. television – network TV, at that – aired on the Fox sitcom Roc .

The Season One episode “Can’t Help Loving That Man,” focuses on Roc’s uncle (Shaft’s Richard Roundtree) revealing he’s gay and going to marry a man named Chris, and the family’s subsequent struggle to accept his lifestyle, ultimately culminating with Roc (Charles S. Dutton) hosting the ceremony (at that time not legal) in his home. 

1992: The San Diego Police Department announced that it was severing its ties with the Boy Scouts of America due to a local chapter’s dismissal of a gay police officer who was involved with the Explorer program.

1993: Roman Catholic priest Rev Andre Guindon dies of a heart attack at age 60. In his book “The Sexual Creators” he wrote that heterosexuals should look to same-sex couples to learn about tenderness and sharing.  After the release of his book the Vatican demanded that Guindon apologize and bring his teaching more in line with the Catholic Church.   Rev Andre Guindon  never apologized and never changed his progressive teachings.

Gay/LGBT History Month - October 20: ACT-UP, Dr. Evelyn Hooker, Jesse Helms and the First Gay Wedding On TV

Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, the Face of Church Child Sex Abuse Scandal, Dead at 86

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Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the church’s child sex abuse scandal, has died in Rome, where he served as arch-priest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002

Revealed by the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team  it was uncovered that Law and other bishops before him had covered for pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

n a news conference, Law apologized to victims of abuse by a priest, John Geoghan, who had been moved from parish to parish, despite Law’s knowledge of his abuse of young boys. Law continually insisted Geoghan’s abuse was in the past even after over 30 former victims came forward.

Geoghan was eventually convicted of indecent assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy

Law never faced criminal sanctions for his role in allowing abusive priests to remain in church parishes. The scandal reverberated through the church, exposing similar allegations worldwide that compromised its moral authority and led to years of multi-million-dollar settlements. After his resignation his second career at the Vatican was a slap in the face to victims of church sex abuse, one that further undermined the church’s legitimacy.

The Vatican issued a press release early Wednesday confirming the death of Cardinal Bernard Law, with one line reading “Cardinal Bernard Law died early this morning after a long illness.”

Good.

Pope Benedict Accused Of Crimes Against Humanity At International Criminal Court in The Hague

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Pope Benedict along with Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals and former Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal Tarcissio Bertone, now secretary of state; and Cardinal William Lavada, head of the CDF have been accused of crimes against humanity, in a formal complaint to the international criminal court (ICC) filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a US-based organization that represents the claimants.

The submission, lodged at The Hague on Tuesday, accuses the four men not only of failing to prevent or punish perpetrators of rape and sexual violence but also of engaging in the “systematic and widespread” practice of concealing sexual crimes around the world.  According to the document filed by CCR, the pope, as head of the Catholic church, is ultimately responsible for the sexual abuse of children by priests and for the cover-ups of that abuse. The group argues that he and others have “direct and superior responsibility” for the crimes of those ranked below them, similar to a military chain of command.

Its too bad the Catholic Church cannot be retroactively charged with genocide for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, they burned to death or murdered in other ways for daring to think their own thoughts throughout the centuries.

Catholic Theologian Claims Much Of The Clergy Is Gay! – (Shocker Right?)

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Theologian David Berger was a correspondent professor for the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas in the Vatican, where he said his academic work was watched and censored where it concerned homosexuality.

As a gay man himself, he said that living among the Catholic homophobia was a nightmare.

“It must be acknowledged that a large number of Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexually-inclined,” the Local quoted Berger as telling Der Spiegel  “The worst homophobia in the Catholic Church comes from homophile priests, who are desperately fighting their own sexuality,” he said.

“Obviously, those who follow their urges are repudiated more fiercely when one is so painfully repressing that disposition oneself,” he added.

More proof t6hat those in the closet are the most homophoboic.