The city named after St. Francis of Assisi has passed a resolution condemning the Catholic church.
Resolution 168-08, passed unanimously by the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors two years ago, also accused the Vatican of being a "foreign country" meddling with and attempting to "negatively influence (San Francisco's) existing and established customs."It said of the church's teaching on homosexuality, "Such hateful and discriminatory rhetoric is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors."
In case you're curious as to what the Vatican is teaching on homosexuality, it can be found in the Catechism here.
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
This is consistent with 2000 years of Christian teaching. The Church is teaching what it has always taught. It is only in the last twenty or so years that homosexuality has become regarded no longer as a disorder, but instead, if San Francisco is to be taken as an example, as something not only to be tolerated, but rather, with rulings such as this, as something approaching the mandatory. Gay activists used to speak about how all they wanted was tolerance. Clearly, that is not where this ends. It ends with active government hostility against the Church. From "tolerate me" the position has moved to "we shall not tolerate you."
I believe in the teachings of the Catholic church. All of them. And I believe that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered. I believe this is self-evident from natural law. Sex is the human means of reproduction, of procreation. Homosexual sex cannot produce new life, therefore it can never fully express the meaning of sexuality. It is, therefore, a disordered form of the natural act. It is immoral.
This does not mean that gays ought to be persecuted, attacked, or discriminated against in matters that do not involve sexual morality. But neither does it mean that where radical homosexual activists gain a majority, such as in San Francisco, that their own discrimination, their own lack of tolerance, should become law. The City Council of San Francisco cannot repeal natural law, it cannot change the nature of the sexual act or of human reproduction. You cannot change nature by fiat, you cannot command the tide to roll the other way. The resolution is a mockery of the law, and as such it demands mockery in return. For Catholics in San Francisco, it demands protests and acts of civil disobedience.
I personally think the bishop ought to lead a march on City Hall to demand the repeal of this hateful resolution.
Hat tip to Karen at Some Have Hats.