Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being … does not deserve it less.
Gay groups and activists have reacted angrily afterPope Benedict XVI said that mankind needed to be saved from adestructive blurring of gender.
Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity fromhomosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting theenvironment.
The comments were “irresponsible and unacceptable”, the UK’s Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said.
Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words “hurtful”.
The row erupted as news emerged that the pontiff is to pay his first visit to the Holy Land in May next year.
‘Self-destruction’
Pope Benedict made the comments in an end-of-year speech to senior Vatican staff.
Defending God’s creation was not limited to saving the environment, he said, but also about protecting man from himself.
It was not “out-of-date metaphysics” to “speak of human nature as’man’ or woman'”, he said. It came from the “language of creation,despising which would mean self-destruction for humans”.
Gender theories, he said, led to man’s “auto-emancipation” from creation and Creator.
“Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection but the human being… does not deserve it less,” he said.
LGCM head Rev Sharon Ferguson said the Pope’s remarks justified “gay bashing” and bullying.
Mark Dowd, strategist for Christian environmental groupOperation Noah, said the comments betrayed “a lack of openness to thecomplexity of creation”.