New Year, New Way of Thinking

I try not to get involved in many arguments.  Really, some things are just beneath me and generally, I choose to ignore some of the homophobic things that come from the Church.  However, listening to some of the things this week, it seems that we have gone backwards in time. The newspapers and television have been carrying the story of Cardinal O'Brien likening Gay marriage to slavery and saying that it is grotesque among other things.  Now, I fully support this individuals right to his opinion, just as I am entitled to my right to think that he has an invisible friend.  But, this sort of behaviour belongs in the last century where it belongs, not in 21st Century Britain. I am in a civil partnership; I have been for a number of years now.  In my mind and to all practical purposes I am married.  I class myself as married and I have the same legal rights as someone who is married, I am to all intents and purposes, married and I am glad I live in a place where I have never encountered opposition to my sexuality and am accepted as the slightly odd individual with pink hair.  Cardinal O'Brien has the ability to have his opinion listened to.  He is a representative of an institution with millions of members and his words, if they were referencing another class of people would be considered a hate crime.  Can you imagine if he had said that women going out to work was 'dismantling a fundamental human right', or coloured people. There would be a huge outcry about this.   The words of this person intimate that a section of the population have less right to live a happy and fulfilling life than other people.  Because I, and millions of others, find happiness with someone who happens to have the same genitalia, then We are not to be accorded the same protection as those who prefer a partner with different genitals. I do not want to be a member of an establishment who thinks that ANY other person has less right than I have to do anything. This man is purely and simply homophobic and if his church is too, then I refuse to acknowledge it.   However, I do think that this has brought a level of homophobic behaviour to the fore that I, luckily, have not experienced and I am stunned that it is such an acceptable form of behaviour in Britain and highlights the work that still needs to be done to create a truly equal society, starting with the Church!