Catholic publication's astonishing encomium of Peter Tatchell


The above photo is of Peter Tatchell on the Euro Pride march in 2006. "Pope 'Betty' Benedict XVI - Queen of Homophobia" might be considered offensive to Catholics, no? The report on the Peter Tatchell Website, has further information:
"The Pope talks like a gay man, walks like a gay man and dresses like a gay man. Some people might conclude he is a gay man," said Peter Tatchell of the LGBT rights group, OutRage!

"If the Pope is gay, his hypocrisy is breath-taking. Why is he constantly bashing the gay community if he is gay? Is he using homophobia to deflect rumours about his own sexuality?"
No.

Tatchell also helped to co-ordinate the 2010 Protest the Pope rally in London. In the wake of that, his website quotes him as saying:
"Thanks to everyone who joined the march. We made a difference. The protest was reported worldwide, which helped expose the Pope’s sexist, homophobic and reactionary dogmas to hundreds of millions of people."
Here is one of my own photos of what Tatchell describes as the "good-natured, carnival atmosphere." I was wearing clericals and a press pass and was rather close to the demo. I can't make any Pauline claim to persecution but I did get shouted at a bit :-)

pv 026

Tatchell is also on record as an advocate of pornography and Peter Hitchens ran down a letter that he wrote to the Guardian in 1997 defending the possibility of "consenting inter-generation sex", that is, sex between adults and children which he considered could be a great joy for the child.

Although he was distinctly unenthusiastic towards Pope Francis back in July, Tatchell more recently seems to have been on a charm offensive towards the Catholic Church. He has scored a spectacular success with an article by the Chief Executive of Alive Publishing, Mike Conway, in Faith Today, a title in that publisher's collection, entitled My Hero Peter Tatchell. This astonishing article is an encomium of praise for Peter Tatchell without any attempt whatsoever to challenge his record, of which the examples I have given are only a few indications of his campaigning against the moral teaching of the Church, his personal attacks against the Popes, and his extreme views on pornography and child sex which would be abhorred even my most mainstream secularists.

Of course one could write an article discussing Peter Tatchell's views along the lines of "Tatchell - formerly hostile, now a bit more concliatory" or "Tatchell - hostile to Christian moral teaching but good on human rights" or "Tatchell - we don't agree with lots of his campaigns but we do agree with his humanitarian concerns" or even "Tatchell - although he disagrees with Christian views still wants to allow them to be heard."

I'm not suggesting that any of these angles would necessarily be helpful, but at least they would make some sense. A completely uncritical "Peter Tatchell My Hero" angle doesn't.

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