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Labour TD John Lyons. Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

Labour TD calls Pope's gay marriage comments "deeply insulting"

John Lyons claims this is second time in a week that Vatican has “targeted the international LGBT community”.

THE ASSISTANT WHIP in the Labour Party, John Lyons, has criticised Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on gay marriage.

Lyons said that yesterday’s comments were “deeply insulting and out of touch”.

During his end-of-year speech yesterday, the Pope said that his and the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage was a “fight for the family, the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question”. He cited France’s chief rabbi Gilles Bernheim, who is also opposed to marriage between people of the same sex. The Pope said:

Bernhein has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper.

Lyons, TD for Dublin North West and one of three openly gay members of Dáil Éireann, said today that:

Yesterday’s comments by Pope Benedict XVI in his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy described people pursuing gay marriage as destroying the very essence of the human creature in order to suit their sexual choices.

He said that this was the second time in under a week that “the Vatican has targeted the international LGBT community”. The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano carried a front-page editorial saying that gay couples were living in a “different reality” from heterosexual couples and that gay marriage would be an ultimately “unattainable utopia” along the lines of Communist economic theory.

These comments are “insulting and demoralising”, said Lyons today, “not only because I am a member of the LGBT community, but as a public representative, who is a member of a party that is deeply committed to delivering on human rights at home and abroad”.

He also referred to a recent blessing given by the Pope to Rebecca Kadaga, Speaker at the Ugandan parliament who is advocating passing of an Anti-Homosexual Bill which will see the introduction of mandatory reporting of LGBT people. Lyons said:

It is my belief that these comments and actions by the Vatican completely defy what is at the heart of my understanding of Christianity and civil society. They contravene in my opinion the fundamental message of what thousands of Christians will celebrate on 25 December; the birth of Jesus Christ.
Christmas isn’t about who was present at the birth of Christ, or whether there were animals there or not. The message is essentially a message for all believers and none. It is the message about the very essence of humanity; the creator within the created, the unmanifested within the manifested. In simple terms, the birth of Christ reminds us that at each and everyone’s most inner core is Love, and unconditional love of oneself and of each other. And what is marriage?

It is quintessentially the expression of that love between two people regardless of sexuality.

No church or state should ever be able to decide who can or cannot love each other.

Last weekend, gay rights campaigners held a small protest near St Peter’s Square after the Pope said that gay marriage threatened the whole institution of marriage.

Read: Pope says mankind at stake over gay marriage>
Vatican newspaper slams gay marriage as communist ‘utopia’>

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    Mute Nyal Maku
    Favourite Nyal Maku
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    Nov 15th 2015, 10:40 AM

    This woman is a design icon and a national treasure, she produced a vast body of work across many design disciplines. The exhibition dedicated to her in the museum in Collins barracks is really worth viewing (it’s free too!).

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    Mute Mick Torrans
    Favourite Mick Torrans
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    Nov 15th 2015, 10:46 AM

    Acknowledgement of her contribution to modernism, and design in general, is long over due but at least it has begun after decades. Fair play to Dr.Goff for all her work. My own LEGO tribute to E1027 sits proudly above the fireplace! https://instagram.com/p/60lMUOTHxg/

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    Mute Coles
    Favourite Coles
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    Nov 15th 2015, 9:29 PM

    What? You’ve obviously just heard about her. Her work has been celebrated for generations.

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    Mute Inanimate Carbon Rod
    Favourite Inanimate Carbon Rod
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    Nov 15th 2015, 12:03 PM

    Love Eileen Grey, she was 50 years ahead of her time. Some day I wanna buy one of her Bibbendum chairs, they look really comfy

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    Mute Jonathan Eastwood
    Favourite Jonathan Eastwood
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    Nov 15th 2015, 1:56 PM

    I seem to remember reading an article about one of her chairs selling for millions at auction. So obviously her work is still very relevant and beautiful to many people.

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    Mute Pete Gibson
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    Nov 15th 2015, 11:08 AM

    Dated arts-rubbish from a bye-gone age.
    There is a reason the arts cult of modernism is forgotten.
    It was boring rubbish.
    That tiger skin on the floor was supposed to be Chic.
    Nobody would design such horrible houses or interiors like that nowadays.
    (Dublin developers and designers just might do though.)

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    Mute Alesis
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    Nov 15th 2015, 2:24 PM

    Art deco stuff is still sought after. That chair above looks totally useless, but that’s often the point. betcha someone would pay a pretty penny for it.

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    Mute Anton Dec
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    Nov 15th 2015, 9:52 PM

    You’re a silly little person aren’t you?

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    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
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    Nov 15th 2015, 2:30 PM

    Because… She was a woman?

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    Mute Anthony Halpin
    Favourite Anthony Halpin
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    Nov 16th 2015, 2:26 PM

    Ireland has a long tradition of ignoring it’s own talent, an inferiority complex borne of ignorance which continues to this day. Both AIB and Aer Lingus went outside of Ireland for the design of their logos. If you want money from the Arts Council, a non – Irish sounding name is a huge advantage (along with no talent, most of the time) This in a country which has a rich artistic heritage going back thousands of years (Book of Kells / Durrow etc.)

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