Retro Raunch Revisit

JUL 23, 1992: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger leads a Vatican Commission which establishes that the limiting of certain rights to homosexuals & non-married couples is not equivalent to discrimination on the same grounds as race or gender. In Oct 1986 as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), he sent a letter that condemned a previous liberal interpretation of another earlier CDF document's benign attitude on gay sexual ethics. His reasoning clarified that while the Catholic Church's position didn't particularly view the inclination of a homosexual as sin, the more or less strong tendency of its practice was an intrinsic moral evil that made the inclination itself an objective disorder. The letter also condemned homophobic speech & violence as deplorable and that Church pastors should denounce such treatment wherever it occurs. Ratzinger again repeated these views in 1992 and felt the principles should be extended into civil law, declaring again that sexual orientation was not equivalent to race or ethnicity and thus taking sexuality into account was not unjust prejudice. Ratzinger was made a Cardinal in Jun 1977 and went onto become Pope Benedict XVI in Apr 2005. As Pontiff, he made controversial speeches about gender roles & traditional heterosexual marriage saying how men needed protection from self-destruction and to adhere to the social role as set by the Creator. Such remarks were often heavily criticized by anti-Conservative LGBTQ groups as misogynist bigoted intolerance and although his words didn't always necessarily mention homosexuality or same-sex union by name, the interpretation of his submissive views would still be characterized by many as hateful hyperbole on par with his claiming they were an equal threat to world peace just as much as he considered abortion & euthanasia to be. He died in Dec 2022. Religious theological scholars continue to argue over the Bible's calling of homosexuality as Old Testament doctrinal purists recite its quote of "abomination", while they are pitted against new ecclesiastical revisionists who say the original Leviticus interpretation of disapproval/rebuke is a twisting of scripture.