TRANSGENDER RIGHTS AND THE VISIT OF POPE FRANCIS TO IRELAND 2018
Hate speech is any speech that attacks, disparages, and/or demeans a person
or group of persons on the basis of their race, religion, ethic status, sexual
orientation, disabilities or gender.
The transgender community is the number one target today of hate speech and the
results are tragic. People are hurt by being told by religion that their true
gender identity is not true and thus they are dehumanised. Religion always
influences more than its own members – its opinions bleed into the outlooks of
atheists as well as politicians. Transgenders are driven to suicide or murdered
more than any other community. The transgender community is one of the smallest
and therefore the most vulnerable targets.
It is a medical fact that people with gender dysphoria are not mentally ill
but are made mentally ill by those who refuse to affirm their true gender.
If gender dysphoria were an illness the attitude of the Church would not be in
keeping with the fact that affirming the true gender of the sufferer is a
critical and core part of treatment. The Church would be very harmful.
Issues of a right to freedom of speech in this case cannot override the right to
have a safe non-judgemental and non-critical space in this country.
Here is the law.
2.—(1) It shall be an offence for a person—
(a) to publish or distribute written material,
(b) to use words, behave or display written material—
(i) in any place other than inside a private residence, or
(ii) inside a private residence so that the words, behaviour or material are
heard or seen by persons outside the residence,
or
(c) to distribute, show or play a recording of visual images or sounds,
if the written material, words, behaviour, visual images or sounds, as the case
may be, are threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard
to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred.
(2) (a) In proceedings for an offence under subsection (1), if the accused
person is not shown to have intended to stir up hatred, it shall be a defence
for him to prove that he was not aware of the content of the material or
recording concerned and did not suspect, and had no reason to suspect, that the
material or recording was threatening, abusive or insulting.
(b) In proceedings for an offence under subsection (1) (b), it shall be a
defence for the accused person—
to prove that he was inside a private residence at the relevant time and had no
reason to believe that the words, behaviour or material concerned would be heard
or seen by a person outside the residence, or
if he is not shown to have intended to stir up hatred, to prove that he did not
intend the words, behaviour or material concerned to be, and was not aware that
they might be, threatening, abusive or insulting.
Transgenders pay money to the church so what they have to say should be heard in
the Church and doctrines that condemn them need to be revised and abandoned and
apologised for.
The problem at the heart of this issue of hate speech is that civil regimes all
over the world treat the RC Church differently than they do other religion or
organisation and individuals.
This is partly due to the fact that The Vatican is treated as a sovereign state
with more than 160 ambassadors - nuncios - around the world.
To address this problem effectively Italy should revoke its 1929 Concordat with
the Vatican and take it back under Italian government control.
The current pope has unleashed severe hate speech against the transgender
community. To hate the sin of transgenderism as the Church would describe it is
to hate the transgender person for what they are is part of who they are.
Here are some quotations from the pope,
"Rather than contrast negative interpretations of sexual differences ... they
want to cancel these differences out altogether, proposing techniques and
practices that render them irrelevant for human development and relations."
National Catholic Reporter in 2015. "Let's think of the nuclear arms, of the
possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings,-
let's think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the
gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation."
“Today, in schools they are teaching this to children – to children! That
everyone can choose their gender.”
"It is painful to say this today. People speak of varied families, of various
kinds of family, - the family [as] man and woman in the image of God is the only
one." This is an attack on transgender parents.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA rightly said
"Pope Francis doesn't understand how his comments increase the vulnerability of
transgender people to many forms of discrimination”. He is bound to understand –
he just does not truly care.
There is a real risk that the Pope could say something very damaging about
transgender people when he is in Ireland. How can one feel supported or safe as
a transgender person when people who are heavily taking this man’s word for x or
y being right or wrong are flocking to him? The pope needs to be warned to keep
it shut for Irish law is supportive of and protects transgender people.
Four things are needed,
1 Assurance that the pope will be legally penalised should there be any hate
speech against transgenders or accusations of murder regarding abortion (one of
the worst forms of hate speech imaginable)
2 He must be warned.
3 Protests must be organised against his policies and against the collaboration
with the pope that is coming from politicians and celebrities
4 Based on the principles, Daniel O Donnell and Nathan Carter etc should pull
out of concerts as a sign of solidarity and support for those who are hurt and
oppressed by this religion which has been one of the most damaging religious
systems of all time. Scores die in poor countries for this religion will not
grant a right to abortion. This man is as bad as Trump and a dictator on the
personal level as documented in the book, The Dictator Pope.
LGBT rights are under grave new threats and the winds of change that reverse
them are gaining momentum. LGBT is not a community but bickering communities
trying to dubiously tell themselves they are united and also qualified to speak
for all who feel their gender identity is differently ordered or who desire sex
relations with the same sex. The last thing LGBT need is the Pope and his
teaching and influence.