VATICAN: Gay marriages are deviant and a threat to society, and homosexual acts are against "the natural moral law", the Vatican has said.
The headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church yesterday launched a fresh attempt to halt the growing momentum towards legalising gay marriages in North America and Europe.
The Holy See urged Roman Catholic politicians to vote against Bills that would recognise gay marriages. "Marriage exists solely between a man and a woman ... Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law," it said in a strongly worded statement.
The 12-page document by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith added: "Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour ... but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity."
The document also denounced gay couples adopting children: "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children."
Gay rights groups were swift to hit back. "This is just the latest move in their homophobic crusade," said Mr Franco Grillini, an Italian lawmaker and honorary chairman of Arcigay, the country's largest gay rights group.
Abroad, the reaction was equally virulent. The statement was "a sad document of close-minded fanaticism", said Mr Volker Beck, parliamentary manager of Germany's Green Party.
Mr Henk Beerten, chairman of the Federation of Dutch Associations for the Integration of Homosexuality, said: "This just shows the church is way, way behind developments in society."
In Sweden, where gay festival Stockholm Pride is in full swing, the event's president, Mr Nicke Johansson, said the 83-year-old pope was "irrelevant" to the modern world.
In March, the Vatican said countries that allowed gay marriages were inhabited by people with "profoundly disordered minds".
Last month, the US Supreme Court struck down state sodomy laws that had made it a crime for gays to have consensual sex in their own bedrooms. - (Reuters)David Adams - Opinion, page 16