Chase the Pope off the Planet

First let me make on thing very clear. I do not care for any religious leaders or organized religion and don’t give a rats pa-tooey if they are liberal or conservative. But that old thing that resides in Rome looking half crazed really gets my goat. Now I love peace as much as everyone else in fact most of my adult life has centered around working for peace. During the Vietnam days I was a conscientious objector even if the draft board tried to convince me that Lutherans were not pacifists. (Oh those outsiders telling a person who they are.) I have been arrested in many a demo and could go on and on but what the heck I don’t need to go on and on putting my credentials out there like the wash on a clothes line. I just am who I am and what I am.

 On December 11, that old Pope in Rome, who by the way has the credentials to be the dreaded anti-christ released his statement  called, “The Human Family, A Community of Peace” to the news media. This  will be delivered on January 1 New Years Day. After reading the news release I had to rush from the room and take a puke.  The title used in the news release was, “Pope says Abortion, Gay Marriage are Obstacles to World Peace”and within the statement it says, “The nuclear family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace and the primary agency of peace. Everything that serves to weaken the family based on marriage of a man and woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of new life…constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.” Oh come on popie! The last time I looked it was organized religion that was the main obstacle to peace. You holy guys just love war. Holies always have. Should we begin to count these wars, let us call them out one by one. You have a long history of murder and mayhem in the name of your god.  

The Catholic church has long been one of the most obstructive and destructive institution on the planet. It amazes me that the people of this earth have allowed this aberration to drag its baggage into the 21 century. If there ever was “devil work” this church and its history sure fits the bill. From on the road to Damascus, to the fluttering crosses of Constantine, the murder of innocents Jews and many others during the crusades, to the destruction’s of the peasant cultures through out Europe, the burning of women as witches and queers as witch-men to the destruction of the native cultures in North and South America. Popes have presided over the murder of millions of people during the past few centuries in any areas that they have spread their doctrine. Today this pope may be old, he may be nasty, and he may be a bit off his rocker but his words have the power to get us queers into a bit more than hot water. After all according to him a few I do’s stand in the way of world peace.” (people warring, kill the queers and this war or that war will stop). People love scapegoats and remember it is sinner queers who brought  911, the hurricanes that kill, fire, flood and fleas. Yes these types, these queers  must be dealt with. Let’s not forget that there is a fine line between a flourishing cultural and a cultural gone mad and it can happen anywhere at anytime.

Okay so I got something to say so hear me out old man. You want us to believe the people on the planet have enjoyed peace for the thousands of years of record history because families have been headed by one man and women who taught their children not to pick up stick, stone, gun or drop napalm on fleeing humans or of course never to drop a Atomic bomb. Oh how peaceful, oh what joy! What a lovely world this is! But QWB knows that I like a good rant and part of my job is setting the record queer. We all know that these families of which the Pope speaks have waged more war and their spawns have marched off to the drum more times then they have sat under their fig trees petting their lambs. Where does the pope get off trying to revise history? The nuclear family of which he speaks can not be left of the hook that easy, and lesbians and gays who wish to marry condemned for being an obstacle to peace. This is wrong, oh so wrong. If Catholics want a Pope who lies than they must be a liars too.  It is up to Catholics everywhere to tell the pope he is wrong and that he should apologize, stop lying and then it is up to the people to chase this anti-Christ from the face of the planet.

I LOVE A BIT OF OUR-STORIES (We Were There, We Were Queer and We Were Heretics.)

Queers have a history fighting the oppression of the Roman Catholic Church. I find my information and will try to condense it, from two sources. One is from Harry Hay, who in 1953 presented to a Mattachine discussion group a talked called, “The Feast of Fools“. This essay is published in Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the words of its Founder, Harry Hay. Hay did extensive research into the roles of the Berdaches or Two Spirits not only amongst the native tribes of America, but of Europe, and the middle east. The other work is “Gay Resistance: The Hidden History,written by Sam Deaderick and Tamara Turner. The section that will be used here is titled, “The Medieval Holocaust.”  Both books can be found in the Equity and Diversity Collection at the Elihu Burritt Library, located at Central Connecticut State University.

Christianity spread through Europe in the Middle Ages as a result of a violent assault against the tribes and cultures living there. Part of the beginning of queer resistance was the struggle against the Catholic Church. It is almost impossible to separate out specific queer resistance from the general resistance since all opposition against the Catholic Church is recorded as “heretical” opposition. From the very beginning of the organized Catholic Church it has attempted to eradicate the “pagan or heathen” religious from the face of the earth. Most of those who practiced what is call the “old religion” were people who lived outside of organized towns in small settlements or villages. Within these villages were separate household consisting of one or two men. These households are anthropologically called the Berdache. (1) Harry Hay on pages 106, 107 in Radically Gay writes in his essay “Feast of Fools“  “During this period the Folk Berdache took over the public responsibility of teaching by design, story, mimicry and native song–the duties of politically organizing and integrating by ritual and by invocations the inventories of folk wisdom and past experience. In these Matriarchal cultures the Berdache evolved to the social responsibility of group coordinators rather than to the private ruling class servitude of subsidized specialists.” The subsidized specialist of course were the monks and priests of the Catholic Church. (2) These men also took on the role of midwife, shaman, healers they taught the children of the tribe basically “how to do this and how to do that” so this knowledge would be passed down through the generations. All of these things were learned from the wise women of the tribe. (gee, I remember hanging out in my mother’s kitchen and learning cooking, and sewing from my Grandmother.) But sniff the breeze the stench of death flowed on the air currents, a bitter wind was about to blow, as they came, the armies came armed with papal edicts. The Catholics set out to save Europe from the sin of freedom and force upon their victims repressive standards of sexual conduct. Those who would not repent and convert were accused of witchcraft or practicing the old religion and were burned at the stake. As we are all aware the term faggot comes from the bundle of sticks used as kindling or faggots used to stroke the flames. (3) A series of Inquisitions by the Church to suppress what they saw as heresy began in 1184.  

One of the most famous of these wars against the common folk was the attempt to convert the Cathars. The Cathars were a religious sect that appeared in France in the 11th century and flourished through the 12th and 13th century. They rejected not only the outward symbols of the church such as sacraments and hierarchy (the idea of a priest hood was rejected.) Also firmly rejected was the relationship between God and humanity as taught by the church. They also completely rejected the Old Testament and believed that this god was really the devil. Goodness, one can see why the Catholic Church was against these people and suppressed them in all sort of hideous manners. According to Turner and Deadrick, “the Cathars believed the material world and physicality to be the source of all wickedness and they viewed procreation and marriage as fundamentally evil.” (4) Sexual intercourse and reproduction propagated the slavery of spirit to the flesh, hence procreation was considered undesirable. Relationships between same gender men and women were considered preferable to marriage. This resulted in the charge of sexual perversion.  The common English insult ”bugger” is said to derive from “bulgar”, the notion that Cathars followed the “Bulgarian heresy” whose teaching entailed sexual activity which avoided procreation. The Cathars avoided eating all animal  food except fish. War and Capital punishment were also condemned.

The first crusade against the Cathars began in 1208 ending in 1229. In 1209 the Crusader army besieged the town of Beziers in southern France. Well over 20,000 people were tortured, mutilated, killed, blinded, dragged behind horses and used for target practice. The city was razed by fire. (5) The Abbot commander when asked how to tell a Roman Catholic in the town from a Cathar he replied, “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own.” He then sent a letter to his holiness in Rome stating, “Today your holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age or sex.”  The Inquisition was begun in 1229 and continued through the 13th century and a great part of the 14th century. Anyone refusing to recant was sent to the gallows or burned at the stake. The last know Cathar to be executed in 1321. One interesting fact was that the Cathars who did repent and recant were obligated to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing. (6) 

Strangle Hold By False Prophets.

Through the political and military victory the Roman Catholic Church consolidated the tight hold of Patriarchal institutions on the masses of Europe. The moral stricture of the church doctrine were injected into the secular laws through-out the continent. This forced what we would know as our people underground and the triads of hate continue towards us by the pope, Catholics, Protestants, and others who claim to be Christians. Most if they had a thinking cap or an intelligent brain would fully realize that the Jesus and Christianity they speak of is really far from Jesus and his teachings that it become scary when old rambling mouth gets going against us. For the pope to mention abortion and gay marriage in the same breath is nothing new. Let me leave you with these words of Tamara Turner, “The rise of the taboo against homosexuality has always been interconnected and coincided with the fall in the status of women. This was a weapon foisted against the very concept of women’s liberation and free sexuality. The taboo against homosexuality is rooted in the function of the Church to prop up the nuclear, monogamous, male headed family for the orderly movement and inheritance of private property. Were ever we find patriarchy and the oppressive class society it serves we realize that these are the fundamental enemies of sexual freedom for the entire human race.” (7) 

1. & 2. “Feast of Fools“ Harry Hay, Published in Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the words of its founder. Edited by Will Roscoe, Beacon Press Boston, 1996.

3. Gay Liberation Front Flyer. 1970.

4. Gay Resistance” The Hidden History,Sam Deaderick and Tamara Turner, Red Letter Press, 1997

5. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition

6. The Yellow Cross, The Story of the Last Cathars, Rene Weis, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2000 pgs. 11-12

7. Gay Resistance, The Hidden History, Sam Deaderick and Tamara Turner, Red Letter Press, 1997.

Notes: 

Harry Hay also writes about the “Feast Of Fools that began on the Vernal Equinox and lasted until April 6th became a crying out and exposing oppression. This period began with the chanting of the “Magnificat” –”He hath cast down the princes from their thrones and hath exalted the lowly and oppressed; the hungry he hath filled with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.” At this point everyone changed their place in society. Everything was turned upside down, questioned, every law and custom was fully exposed to the village. This feast was lead by the fool or the Berdache who through his magic and role of witch-man, transforms that which is into its opposite. This dance was know in France as Les Mattachine. This dance was anti-state and anti-church and the people took courage from this imitative ritual made militant and political, through which the lowly and oppressed would rise again by the strength of their own faith and own self created dignity.” Harry Hay, The Mattachine 1948-1953, “The Feast Of Fools.” pages 110-113

Our people fared no better on the South and North American continents. As the church spread so did their hang-ups, taboos, their guilt and fear. The Berdache who was considered to have unusual mystical powers and were spiritual leaders of the tribe were hunted as animals, and killed. The matrilineal native culture was decimated by the genocidal extermination of Indians by European settlers. Amongst many of the native tribes transgenderalism was an accepted and respected part of their societies. Unfortunately documentation about our people comes from European colonialist who viewed them through the distorted prism of Christianity. An excellent paper written by Megan Langford published in 1998 brings the story of the Berdache to life and can be found at her site:   

http://academic.reed.edu/english/Courses/English341gs/FinalPaper/MeganL/berdache_web.html.