ARE GAYS HUMAN OR A SEPARATE SPECIES?

 I have watched a program run by Ann and Andy, two gay people who have made many inroads into overturning prejudice against  them, and have have been instrumental in having some pro-gay laws instituted. However, over a period of time I began to notice a reactionary tendency in their attitudes- the demonizing of other countries, for example, because of their (often imagined) shabby treatment of gays. All of those countries are on the CIA's enemies list.  The last straw was their attacks on a hero of mine- Mario Jose Bergoglio- Pope Francis. As atheists or former Catholics, or Jews or Protestants, (pick your favorite), they loathe and despise anything Catholic without even understanding- or trying to- the nuances and complexities of a 2,000 year old tradition which has covered the world. Yes the Church has done some vile things, but so have all religions and governments. Seeing only one side betrays their lack of understanding of dialectics- the unity and struggle of opposites. Here is a letter I sent them:

This is my last correspondence to you. Once I said I did not want to be a nuisance, but it turns out that you are the nuisances. In this letter the word "you" refers to both Ann and Andy, as you are both of a single mind (how refreshing it would be if there were an opposing view somewhere, but apparently the world is only black or white).

Francis  come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions, and no pontiff before him had,  “The intrigue over the video’s origin, and the explosive reaction to the Pope’s ongoing support for LGBT people, and  Francis’ willingness to push his own agenda, even at the expense of pushback from religious conservatives  in the Curia  has delivered the bombshell quote that gays deserve to be part of the family and that he supported civil unions, or a “ley de convivencia civil”  – to give them legal protections.In some countries, the rights of gays are a life and death matter, and that Francis was merely positioning the church to defend LGBTQ Catholics from  deadly discrimination.“The Pope is willing to ‘break a few plates’ to ensure he communicates this Gospel-based message of compassion,”

Televisa confirmed the origin of the quotes, but said they never aired. The Vatican, which used its own cameras to shoot the interview and provided raw footage to Televisa afterward, had censored the civil union quote in question. Coming out in the midst of a Vatican corruption scandal dominating Italian headlines for months, the film provided a nostalgic profile of a once globe-trotting papacy that in some ways ended with COVID-19. Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband. The answer was obvious, given the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect.

The Pope’s penchant for speaking in an off-the-cuff manner has angered not only supporters and critics, but also his staff in the Roman bureaucracy. He has at times sought to circumvent his media office by personally granting and arranging his own interviews, purposefully breaking a centuries-old mold in which popes spoke in an extremely formal and controlled manner. His goal is to set a tone, not a policy, but the reactionary priests try their best to silence him, even as reactionary Ann and Andy do.

The Vatican cut out the Pope’s remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa. Gone was this comment from the Pope: “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.” The Vatican had tried to suppress the Pope’s potentially groundbreaking remarks. One of the most divisive issues facing the Roman Catholic Church raised questions about whether the Pope’s handlers sought to silence his apparent approval of legal unions for same-sex couples.The words that went missing – expressing support for same-sex civil unions – surfaced only this week in a new documentary, stoking the hopes of gay Catholics and the fury of conservatives,, including Ann and Andy. Since the remarks surfaced Wednesday in the new documentary, they have been welcomed as a major breakthrough by liberal Catholics and LGBT activists, and reviled by conservative bishops as a contradiction of church teaching.

So much for that.

Andy screams, gesticulating, " If you read it carefully he never said he  welcomed people  into the church" Well I read it carefully and this is what he said, without the bad faith that drips from both your tongues; “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said “A civil union law; will protect them in a legal sense." If he did not follow your order to specifically welcome gays into the church, it is because they are already there, and have been there for the last 2,000 years.

Andy again dogmatically and smugly pontificates; "Change  -does not come from  the top. Change has  to come from the bottom." I'VE GOT NEWS. The only reason change takes place at the top is BECAUSE it has been gestating all along at the bottom, and is rising. You two are more afraid of change than the Catholic bishops, because that would take you off you from your smug dogmatic little throne that you have occupied lo these many decades. Do you really mean to sit there a say that Francis does not represent change? Did Ratzinhger or the Polish Popes welcome gays? I must have missed that.

Ann; "We are not alone" Not you are not. You are surrounded by a bunch of sycophants, as the were the monarchies of Europe. What you and they cannot see is that you will ALWAYS be a minority, and if you cut yourself off from, the rest of humanity (attacking the Russians and Chinese and Cubans, for example just to keep the right wing Democrats happy , you will become more and more isolated. The world is not made up of 100% LGBTQ people, and we have learn to live with others, not the other way around.

But no, in the face of all evidence to the contrary "its a PR move"

"Going soft on the Pope who is leading the opposition to liberalize sex laws" The Pope is at fault when the Catholic bishops all voted against the Italian liberalization. What is missing from this slander is that the bishops are declared enemies of the Pope. Francis has to contend with bigot like you, outside the church, and other equal bigots, the bishops, who share the same passion for distortion. Putting the Pope in the same position as the neonazis is simply unforgivable- especially after he was marked for assassination by the dirty war of Videla- which was at the time supported by the US- in Argentina.

Ann- "Joyce Wallace had a great heart compassionate a great sense of humor" Permit me to send you a mirror- everything is backwards in a mirror and you can see yourself as you really are-lacking all those qualities. Mario Jose Bergoglio also has a great heart is compassionate and has a great sense of humor, but you are too blind and prejudiced to see it.. Instead you scream in sarcasm. "Oh what a wonderful thing he has done". Dogmatism is the determined refusal to see anything but your own narrow point of view- "its my way or the highway". you expect the Pope to be answerable to you because you are the truth and the light. Your vicious dogmatism shoves you onto a corner which allows you to act as if you had the right to control political, economic and religious functions of everyone around you and everyone must think like you do.


There is a Mexican poet, contemporary of Shakespeare, without whose poems, sonnets and plays an anthology of Spanish literature would be unthinkable. Her name was Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. She was a Lesbian, and lover of the Countess of Paredes, the wife of the viceroy, the representative of the king of Spain in Mexico. She is greatly loved and admired throughout the Spanish speaking world, but according to you she is anathema, just because she was a Catholic. She was a nun precisely because she wanted nothing to do with men.

Here is a sample of one of her poems

Annoying men who accuse
women without any reason,
not seeing you're the cause
of the very thing you blame;

If you invite their disdain
with measureless desire
why do you want them to behave well
if you incite them to do wrong?

But of course that means nothing to you, because she was a Catholic- the mark of Cain that can never be erased, not even by those, for example,  who espouse liberation theology and have given their lives defending the poor and the oppressed. You are modern day Huguenots, fanatically opposed to the Catholic Church. The Huguenots attacked priests, monks, nuns, monasticism, images, and church buildings. Most of the cities in which the Huguenots gained a hold saw iconoclast riots in which altars and images in churches, and sometimes the buildings themselves were torn down. Ancient relics and texts were destroyed; the bodies of saints exhumed and burned. They were the Taliban of their day.

I would not be surprised if you had never heard of Sor Juana. As New Yorkers, you are constantly adorning yourselves with living in the greatest city in the world, with the highest culture, in the greatest country (Certainly not like Russia or China or Cuba- attack the enemies of the ruling American class in your dutiful attacks on their imagined and propagandized attacks on gays-which often don't even exist-certainly no more than what happens in the US) If a gay person is attacked in the US, it has a fleeting mention, but if the same thing happens, say in Russia, Russia is a monster nation with a monster leader, Putin, who is a dictator and a liar and only has "PR" moves. ) New York, in fact the stinking city full of hypochondriacs, psychotics and the obscenely rich, who believe they are cosmopolitan when in fact they exhibit the most amazing and abject ignorance of what is going on in the world, seeing only the one side, like dutiful imperialists. Even a simple thing like pronouncing a foreign name is enough to floor these sophisticated New Yorkers.

I will never watch your show again.

With utmost sincerity,

Antonio Bernal, Mexican with Sephardic ancestry and proud of it.
Fresno, CA