The Heresy of Difference
Galeano, Eduardo
The Upside-Down World Eduardo Galeano The Heresy of Difference Richard Nixon, that eminent historian, had it right. In 1972, when he was President of the United States, he delivered to his closest...
...That night in 1513, Balboa initiated the land in the punishment of the unspeakable sin of sodomy...
...From the High Pontiff to the last parish priest, there is no man of the cloth who is not a sex expert...
...In Panama, as in many other parts of America, homosexuality was al-lowed—until the conquistadors burst in...
...Immediately, the high functionaries of the Church echoed the voice of their commander...
...You know what happened to the Romans...
...In some, whipping or the death penalty...
...And whenever these issues have come up before the United Nations, Bush has voted common cause with his sworn enemies: Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and even Iraq, before it received the hurricane of missiles launched in the name of God and of oil...
...Both enjoy direct communications with the On High, albeit on different telephones...
...The pyre reduced them to nothing but ash so there would remain no memory of them...
...This affirmation of dignity, which dignifies us before everyone, arises from the courage to be different and the pride of being so...
...Yet, as all have taken the vow of chastity, it is hard to understand how they can reach such complete knowledge about an activity they are proscribed from practicing...
...Versions of legal marriage exist in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, France, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, and certain regions of Spain...
...In many, the punishment is prison...
...In Uruguay, Archbishop Nicolas Cotugno declared that "homosexuality is a contagious disease" and recommended the isolation of all carriers, comparing homosexual marriage to the union of men and animals...
...In Spain, the Inquisition lasted three and a half centuries...
...The door is kept locked in the Great Beyond, as well...
...In others, where the death penalty is not legal, paramilitary squads and sick fanatics perform their purification ceremonies: They sweep the streets, torturing, mutilating, and murdering those who merely by existing constitute a public scandal...
...Five years ago, the prime minister of Malaysia proclaimed that they are a threat to national security...
...Recently, the Holy Inquisition, which is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, launched from the Vatican a global campaign against homosexual marriage, "a gravely immoral act that goes against the plan of God and natural law...
...Many homosexuals, men and women, were burned alive...
...And in the city of Buenos Aires, for the first time in Latin American history, the unions of couples of the same sex are now celebrated...
...The last six Roman emperors were fags...
...On others, they form a common front...
...But the smoke still rises...
...The church is preoccupied with sexuality, and has been for centuries...
...Homosexuality destroyed them...
...As Milton Nascimento sings: Any way of loving is worth it, any way of loving is worth loving...
...In 1972, when he was President of the United States, he delivered to his closest collaborators the following crash course on the decadence of Greece and Rome: "You know what happened to the Greeks...
...Last summer, the United States Supreme Court handed down a historic sentence declaring unconstitutional a Texas law that criminalized homosexuality...
...They have been, and remain, united on such sacred matters as the promotion of sexual abstinence among youth, the battle against abortion, and the use of contraceptives...
...One pope after another established a rigid barrier between sin—which includes almost everything—and the little we are left for comfort, since we have to reproduce somehow...
...This article is published with permission of IPS Columnist Service...
...Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan journalist, is the author of"The Open Veins of Latin America, " "Memory of Fire, " and "Soccer in Sun and Shadow...
...And with good reason: In the last few months, homophobia has come under serious attack...
...The President, who is not a Catholic, has made this papal crusade his own...
...It was the time of the Holy Inquisition, a time that seemed never to end...
...The heresy of difference, in all of its forms, was punished by torture or death in many places in Europe and America...
...In Vermont, the Civil Register already recognizes the legitimacy of these unions...
...Armed with the rainbow banner, a symbol of human diversity, they are overturning one of the most sinister heresies of the past...
...they are victories, the result of the persistent battle of gays and lesbians against discrimination and violence...
...Then in New Hampshire, for the first time in the history of Christianity the faithful and the clergy of the Episcopal Church elected a bishop who is openly gay...
...Gays and lesbians are damned on Earth and in heaven...
...In Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, homosexuals have been allowed to marry for almost a year now...
...Everywhere, that which the Pope calls "deviant behavior" and "the legalization of evil" is spreading...
...On certain occasions, like the war against Iraq, they receive contradictory orders...
...Cualquier manera de amor vale la pena, cualquier manera de amor vale amar...
...All of these acts of "grave immorality," of liberty and mental health, are not gifts...
...All that's far behind us, one would assume...
...Reading the last condemnation of the Vatican, one is tempted to ask the celestial sexologists a question or two: If heterosexual marriage is a "natural law," why don't you marry...
...Aristotle was a homo...
...With his habitual broad-mindedness, Bush in these areas is in harmony not only with the Vatican theocrats but with fundamentalist Islamists as well: Puritans united will never be defeated...
...The ruling effectively voids similar laws in twelve other states...
...It isn't the first time Bush and the Pope have discovered they are birds of a feather...
...In 1513, a few centuries before this magisterial lesson, Vasco Nunez de Balboa threw fifty Indians to a pack of dogs, which disemboweled them "because the only thing they need to be women are teats and they can give birth...
...The cross and the sword are raised high as in old times...
...We all know that...
...Rather than ask forgiveness of its victims, the Catholic Church repeats its ancient curses...
...Homosexual marriages are permitted in Belgium and Holland...
...The walls of intolerance are beginning to fall...
...But all of these scorned men and women, these rare souls, are generating some of the best news history has ever seen...
...Another specialist in Good and Evil, President George W Bush, is right alongside the Vatican in condemning homosexual marriage and opposes adoption by couples that don't constitute a normal marriage, "between a man and a woman...
...In more than seventy countries, homosexual relations are illegal...
...Sure...
...And if homosexuals are violators of "God's plan," why did God make them that way...
...As I heard the mother of a young lesbian say, "What hurts me most is that we won't be together in paradise...
...So was Socrates...
...Finally, the state Supreme Court of Massachusetts virtually ordered the legalization of homosexual marriages...
Vol. 68 • January 2004 • No. 1
