Some British Catholics are sticking to their homophobic guns.

Rather than complying with new anti-discrimination laws, Bishop Malcolm McMahon and his pious pals at the Catholic Children's Society - and other agencies - will no longer provide adoptions. Because archaic ideology's way more important than a child's happiness.

Said McMahon:

We have been coerced into this, I am not happy about it at all. The regulations have coerced the children’s society into going against the Church’s teaching, and we don’t wish to do that.

McMahon promises that his group will try their hardest to "merge" with another adoption agency. That way the sin's placed on someone else!

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The Catholic Church better stay out of politics, says Spain's ruling Socialist government. Officials issued a stern ultimatum after last week's homophobic-laden rally.

The party issued a communique in response to accusations by several church leaders that policies such as homosexual marriage were eroding human rights and democracy.

Spain's Catholic Church either had to contest the March 9 elections or to stay out of politics, Socialist Party organizational secretary Jose Blanco wrote in his blog.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government spoke out after several bishops accused it of undermining human rights or democracy at a rally of 160,000 people in Madrid on Sunday.

The church has long been at odds with a government that legalized homosexual marriage, speedier divorce and stem-cell research.
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Blanco on Tuesday described such accusations as 'extremely serious,' offensive to Catholic Socialists, and urged the church to rectify the statements.

The government also wonders if the Church is secretly campaigning for the right wing People's Party.

It may be a new year, but some Catholic leaders are up to their old tricks.

British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's new year's message revolved around the "centrality of Christian married life". What's more, the "man of God" used the occasion to link non-traditional "lifestyles" to drug abuse" Said Murphy-O'Connor:

As Catholics we believe in the partnership between family, school and the parish community. The roots of success in our schools lie in their commitment to the support of family life and most particularly our teaching about the centrality of Christian married life.

Most parents do not want their children to be taught that marriage is no more than one life-style choice among many. They do not want to expose their children to the risk of becoming promiscuous or indulging in drug and alcohol abuse.

Meanwhile, over in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI took a more heavy-handed approach, saying that marriage can help keep world peace: "The family is the primary agent of peace and the negation or even the restriction of rights of the family threatens the very foundations of peace."

Ha! Tell that to all the people who have quarreling and/or abusive parents, partners and other relations.

Nicaragua's government gave its gays a pleasant surprise: legal consensual sex. The Latin American nation's new civil code goes into effect in March of 2008 and represents a decisive break with once-dominant catholic ideology. Blabbeando reports:

The president of the Nicaraguan Parliament's Commission of Justice and Legal Issues, José Pallais, explained that legislators had sought to "modernize" the civil code by not using it to regulate behavior based on the State's moral codes but by strictly addressing legal violations.

"We are not creating a Code of the Catholic Church here," he said, "we are creating a democratic Code under modern principles and principles of legality."

Not all of the Church's morals were abandoned, however: anti-abortion laws will stay in place. Shame…

The Catholic Church flexed its anti-trans muscle this week when it banned trans politico Vladimir Luxuria from being a bridesmaid at her cousin's wedding:

[Luxuria] said she had been asked by her cousin to be the bridesmaid at her Catholic wedding, to be held at an ancient sanctuary in Foggia, southern Italy.

But Father Francesco, the sanctuary's pastor, told Reuters the request was rejected because Luxuria, a former drag queen and defender of gay rights, "does not believe in family values, even from a political point of view".

"His personal choices are another matter, I have already explained this to him," the priest said by phone on Wednesday.

Luxuria's Communist Refoundation party called the ban "illegal and racist".

Well, it's not exactly racist, but it's just as discriminatory. And evil. Or, as Luxuria's party says, "Once again, the Church shows its discriminatory and fundamentalist face."

• We can't provide anything other than this picture, for this shit-based drug may be the grossest, most revolting thing we've ever. It leaves us wondering - pleading, begging and praying - "Why?!" [Note the slang terms. Our favorite: "Butthash".]

• Rev. Donald J. McGuire arrested for sexually assaulting boys:

A prominent Jesuit priest accused of sexually victimizing teenage boys who were his valets as he traveled the world leading Roman Catholic spiritual retreats was taken into federal custody yesterday in Chicago.

The priest, the Rev. Donald J. McGuire, was charged by the federal authorities with traveling to Switzerland and Austria to engage in sexual conduct with a minor. Father McGuire was convicted last year of sexually abusing two high school students on trips to Wisconsin.

So, he allegedly molested them and then made them drive him around? That's twisted.

• Anti-gay Russian nationalists march in Moscow.

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Can you believe it? Yet another conservative sex scandal!? Just when we were getting over cross-dressing Richard Curtis' resignation comes news of Catholic principal Paul Schum hustling his junk in fishnets.

Via Smoking Gun:

Meet Paul Schum. The Kentucky man, a Catholic school principal, is facing a prostitution charge after Louisville police found him dressed like a woman and loitering in an alley Tuesday night. According to a criminal citation, a copy of which you'll find here, Schum, 50, was wearing fishnet stockings, fake breasts, and "all black leather" when officers discovered him "loitering in high drug trafficking and prostitution area." The citation notes that Schum, who heads Bethlehem High School, had "no reason for why he was in alley…dressed up in women's leather other than for prostitution." Schum, now on paid leave from his school post, is due in court on November 27 to answer a misdemeanor charge of loitering for the intent of prostitution.

We wonder what anti-gay Cardinal Jesús López Rodríguez would have to say about this one. Or, better yet, Catholic League leader Bill Donohue.

Winnipeg's Archbishop needs a lesson in manners. The Catholic banned gay former hostage James Loney from appearing at a social justice conference this weekend.

Loney had been set to speak on faith and forgiveness, but anti-gay Campaign Life Coalition convinced Archbishop James Weisgerber to rescind the invitation, despite the fact that Loney had been on a Christian peace keeping mission in Iraq before being held hostage for four months.

A message posted on Life Site, a website started by anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition, calls Loney an "unrepentant, active homosexual" and says Catholics have complained to the Winnipeg Archdiocese about the choice of speakers at the conference.

Loney said the cancellation reminds him of when he was held hostage by insurgents in Iraq.

"When I was in captivity I had to keep my sexual identity a secret from my captors," he said, adding he could have been killed if his captors knew he was gay.

Could the Catholic Church really be like anti-gay Iraqi kidnappers? We'll let CLC spokeswoman Maria Slykerman answer that: "It is on the record that he is a homosexual. If it would have been private there would be no issue. But he publicized it."

Georgetown University has been getting loads of bad press lately.

First came news that a politically-connected student had instigated a homophobic attack, an assault the school attempted to cover-up. Then we heard about how school cops pulled the plug on a gay rights rally. As if that weren't bad enough, the university took five days to report yet another hate crime.

Shameful, yes, but certainly not surprising, says one staffer.

After the jump, read what "Thomas MacMillan" has to say, including allegations that Georgetown officials regularly, needlessly investigate gay staff members. Why the quotes around "Thomas MacMillan"? Because the staffer's afraid to reveal his identity lest the Catholic school come down on him.

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Father Tommaso Stenico certainly did his gay research. The disgraced, yet "tasty" Catholic apparently kept "detailed dossiers" on known and suspected gay priests.

A high profile Vatican cleric suspended after he was shown on television making advances to a young man allegedly had a list of homosexual priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church's governing body…

Father Tommaso Stenico, 60, had "a detailed dossier" of all the homosexual clerics at Vatican "with a list of names and circumstances implicating a certain number of priests and even bishops working at the Curia," Ignazio Ingrao, reporter for the conservative news weekly said.

Stenico also sent his superior Cardinal Claudio Hummes a report denouncing the moral degradation within the Curia, which could make the Vatican "tremble"..

That report, we're sure, as since been destroyed and damned to hell.

No doubt the Vatican's displeased with Italian television network La7. The private cable channel will soon air a special on the secret lives of gay Catholic priests:

The program, hosted by Ilaria D’Amico, hides the identity of the allegedly homosexual priests. The show reports that gay encounters take place regularly among the clergy of Rome, sometimes in the vicinity of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Hail, Mary!

• Hey! Don't forget to come chill with us and former Alaska Senator and current Presidential candidate Mike Gravel!

• Hey. We've got some bad news. Kelly Clarkson canceled her national tour.

• Hey! Check out what you missed at last night's Good Times!

• Hey! Here's a timeline of Massachusetts' road to true equality.

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