Respect the rainforest, tame the Pope

Occasionally (okay, yesterday!), I’ll get a bit huffy about Bible-thumping
wingnuts and someone will say I’m being unfair, that I should respect religion.
But I do. I have great respect for religion the way I have great respect for a
baseball bat with a nail in it. Believe me, I respect that
baseball bat!

But it’s the wide berth I try to give the
Magisterium
that’s never respected! They’re forever beating us or annulling
our marriages or, in today’s latest twist, calling us a “threat” akin to the
destruction of the rainforests
. The Pope says that anything other than

heterosexual marriage is “a destruction of God’s work.” It’s as though he
pictures the world as a beautiful art museum…and then the gays arrive:

Mind you, when I think of things like the Amsterdam
drag nativity scene
(so tacky!) or Jonny
McGovern performing Beyoncé’s “Tranny Ladies,”
I can’t help but
wonder if the Pope has a point. Gay men can be destructive and often
useless and screechy – why, “Sex and the City” taught us that!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

Keep Reading

Trans issues didn’t doom the Democrats

OPINION: The Republicans won ending on a giant anti-trans note, but Democrats ultimately failed to communicate on class

Xtra Explains: Trans girls and sports

Debunking some of the biggest myths around trans girls and fairness in sports

How ‘mature minor’ laws let trans kids make their own decisions

Canadian law lets some youth make medical or legal decisions for themselves, but how does it work?

To combat transphobia, we need to engage with the people who spread it

OPINION: opening up a dialogue with those we disagree with is key if we want to achieve widespread social change