World figures always have to suffer pesky commentators speculating about their motives. It’s par for the course.

If you’re strutting the world stage your personal life almost inevitably becomes political. No surprise that media attention currently asks some awkward questions about our present Pope.

When Heads of State prosecute causes with more than ordinary zeal or venom, we’re all entitled to ask “Why?” and “Why this cause rather than some other?”

Benedict’s career has been marked by a singular zeal to stamp out homosexuality. He can’t, since homosexuality is part of natural variability, but that’s another matter. He desperately wants to be seen to be doing it.

This anti-gay stance borders on the obsessional. Benedict’s Xmas-eve message to the Vatican claimed that eradicating homosexuality was equally important to conserving the global environment. You don’t get much more obsessional than that!

Without any malice it’s perfectly reasonable to ask “Why”? And maybe “Is there something personal here?”

On widely held estimates, at least a third of Catholic clergy are gay. Benedict surrounds himself with gay advisors and officials in a “celibate” all-male bastion. Men in denial over sexuality gravitate towards such environments.

We’ve known for decades that “Gay bashers” (who seek out gays and savagely attack them for no other reason) are often suppressing latent same-sex urges. Destructive rampages are their attempt to destroy an innate homosexuality and assuage their guilt.

When Rome sends out its next anti-homosexual edict, it may be worth asking “Why this obsessive need to pick on a harmless, defenceless minority?” Why indeed, when world issues like hunger, disease, terrorism and war are clamoring to be resolved?

One last comment. In the Sydney Morning Herald of 28/12/08 Paul Sadler asked a perceptive question. I’ve seen no politicians other than The Greens rising to utter the appropriate condemnation Sadler suggests:

“I wonder if the Government, the Opposition and community leaders will publicly condemn the Pope's Christmas comments that homosexuality is a threat to the survival of the human race as they did Sheik Hilaly's comparison of unveiled women to uncovered meat?”

Not really getting a point here.

Homosexuality IS a threat to mankind. Men can't breed with men and women can't breed with women, so in that trail of thought, he's right. Of course, that's not including homosexuals artificially implanting their genetics in the gene pool by using donors and surrogacy.

IF he's meaning they're a threat, we should shoot them, then he's a nutter that needs reining in. Who's the Pope to judge others?. The Church have had an intolerance for the gay community since its inception and they have their reasons and the right to believe what they wish but openly vilifying them is something else, and typically hypocritical, eh Gibo and David?.

I doubt the government will say much other than talk about tolerance....if that.

Hilaly is a fruitloop. No amount of using him to highlight perceived inconsistencies will alter that perception.

Dear Tuckeroo,

I doubt whether members of the government or any politicians
for that matter,
are going to comment on what the Pope had to say
about homosexuality.
They wouldn't run the risk of alienating their
religious voters.

Hilaly was considered a bit of a 'nutter,' so commenting
on his remarks was a safer bet.

It is very sad though that a religious leader
in his Christmas message,
instead of focusing on the real problems that face
humanity, such as poverty, disease, overpopulation,
injustice, oppression, and the devastation of our
natural environment, chose instead to foster hatred.

Instead of giving his followers
a message of hope, and love, of their fellow human beings,
chose instead to condemn.

Sad, very, very, sad.

People of a Catholic persuasion might, in some cases, consider the Papal edict a path from which they must not divert, under peril of eternal damnation or excommunicatoin but the ones in know could not give a rats and as I myself am not catholic, I could not care less either.

The Pope is an influential potentate, elected by a college of cardinals who are, in turn, appointed by the Pope. Hardly a model of democratic propriety.

Church leaders should stick to what they claim to believe and not want everyone else must do. It is no different to listening to (say) the Australian Medical Associations view on foreign policy matters.

I read heaps on 'Your Say opinions' about the Popes comments and the worrying thing was that hardly anyone, if even one, mentioned the disease factor.

The Pope perceives a great threat to mankind caused by homosexuality, this being as much as anything else, is the disease factor which I now call "the great plague".

When I was a child the HIV AIDS factor wasnt there.

Then the door to the underworld openned and the gays came out and got rights.

Then the disease began to sweep the world.

Now it, the great plague, more or less, owns whole countries.

All most commentators were interested in, is personal freedoms and the right to choose.
I have a right to choose too.

And I want to join with the Pope, against the weakness of politicians and say that "homosexuality is a vast threat to the earth and to her peoples".

Its a world killer that people must turn from to stop the plague.

Dear Gibo,

People can only get infected with AIDS
from someone who has the
disease. And the disease does not
discriminate - anyone can get it.
Men/women - having unprotected sex.
Drug addicts sharing unclean needles.
You can get it from blood transfusions,
the list goes on.

It's an old misconception that homosexuality is
to blame for the disease.