Last Monday, a group of people marched in Dublin to protest against attacks on gay people which appear to be motivated by nothing more than a visceral hatred of homosexuality. Yesterday, a leading cardinal used a high- profile gathering of Catholic bishops to articulate the sort of views which underpin such hatred.
American evangelicals might ask: "What would Jesus say about all this?" Most people in this society subscribe, if they subscribe to any religious views at all, to the broad notion that Jesus preached the Gospel of love. As Paul put it in Corinthians, the greatest of the spiritual gifts - faith, hope and love - which God gave man/woman was love.
Love did not seem to form the greater part of the credo articulated yesterday by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, in his address to a synod of more than 250 Roman Catholic bishops in the Vatican. The cardinal said it was bad enough when Catholic politicians defended divorce but "much worse" when they defended the rights of homosexual couples. He characterised gay marriages and allowing gays to adopt children as "these legalistic fakes".
"All these tendencies, which can invade so many nations, are clearly contrary to divine law and to God's Commandments, and they clearly violate natural law," he told the bishops. After condemning gay marriage and abortion, he attacked Catholic politicians who supported laws allowing either. "Can we permit those who deny human and Christian values to receive communion? The responsibility of politicians is great. They can't separate personal positions from socio-political duties," he said.
The separation of religious views from the state's obligations to the whole community is the key component of a pluralist society. It is different from a theocratic one. In this day and age, it is surely possible to oppose gay marriage, as some people do sincerely, without implying that those who support it are somehow opposing God and His Commandments and violating natural law.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, demonstrated a more Christian attitude in his recent comments in the English Catholic journal The Tablet. He said that being gay should not mean a man could not become a priest. The Catholic Church as a whole, and other churches too, need to go a great deal further than this, but at least Dr Martin is moving in the right direction.
Hatred of gay people is a real problem in our society, as those who marched in Dublin know all too well. If celibacy is to prevail in the Catholic Church, homosexuals and heterosexuals should be judged by the same standards.