Kenilworth, 4 March 2012 — The UK gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) has slammed Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s condemnation of gay marriage as totally predictable and bizarre.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has said the plans for gay marriage are a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”, and that the idea of redefining marriage, which the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said he supports, would “shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world”.
George Broadhead, the PTT’s secretary and veteran gay activist, said: “Given the Roman Catholic Church’s well-known views and policy on gay sexual relationships and rights, including civil partnership, not to mention Cardinal O’Brien’s previous homophobic outbursts, his latest are totally predictable. His contention that gay marriage would shame the UK in the eyes of the world is also bizarre. Has the cardinal not heard that gay marriage has already been legalised in no fewer than ten countries: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands? I am not aware that any of these countries have suffered shame or any sort of pariah status as a result. This just shows how out of touch with reality the Roman Catholic Church has become.”