Marianne Duddy-Burke on Pope Francis' Intervention in Italian Debate About Gay Unions: "Pope Has judged Our Relationships, Our Marriages to Be Inconsistent with the Divine Plan"

As Marianne Duddy-Burke of Dignity-USA says in response to Pope Francis's recent public statement opposing marriage equality in Italy, what Francis appears to be attempting is to open a more pastorally affirming space for LGBT people in the Catholic church while continuing to uphold the (very recent) magisterial teaching that LGBT people are "essentially disordered." As she also maintains, you can't have it both ways: you can't claim to be welcoming and affirming while you promote teachings that make a set of fellow human beings less human than everyone else in the world, and while you argue on the basis of those teachings that these denigrated fellow human beings should enjoy fewer rights than other human beings enjoy.

As she also states, 

"Who am I to judge?" is out the window. The Pope has judged our relationships, our marriages to be inconsistent with the Divine Plan. This is the clearest statement yet that Pope Francis and other Catholic officials will continue to lead the charge to prevent either civil or sacramental recognition of same-sex relationships.

And she's entirely correct: informing the world that a targeted minority group is not included in the Divine Plan is heinously wrong. It opens the door to abuse of that targeted minority group.

And it radically undermines the ability of any Christian pastoral leader who says that God's dreams don't include gay families -- and that these pastoral leaders can fathom the dreams of God! -- to be speaking in the name of love, to be speaking about love, to represent love.

The photo of Marianne Duddy-Burke is from Dignity-USA.