US Catholic Bishops are a danger to LGBT people and to the health, happiness and holiness of human society

US Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued a pastoral letter warning about the dangers of same-sex marriage and partnerships, saying they will affect everyone. The letter restates the church's opposition to gay rights, contraception, cohabitation and divorce.

The letter says that legal progress to recognise gay relationships poses

"a multifaceted threat to the very fabric of society, striking at the source from which society and culture come and which they are meant to serve."
"Such recognition affects all people, married and nonmarried: not only at the fundamental levels of the good of the spouses, the good of children, the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good, but also at the levels of education, cultural imagination and influence, and religious freedom.
"To promote and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman is itself a matter of justice. In fact, it would be a grave injustice if the state ignored the unique and proper place of husbands and wives, the place of mothers and fathers and the rights of children, who deserve from society clear guidance as they grow to sexual maturity."

Well excuse me, Catholic bishops of the US, but you are totally, 100% wrong. The attitudes expressed in your letter are a threat to the health and well-being not only of LGBT people but to marriage, family life and Christian communities.

Bishops, you are completely wrong in thinking that same-sex marriage and relationships are dangerous. Heterosexual people are perfectly capable of sabotaging the well-being of marriage and the health of children.

LGBT people are born of heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents. We grow up in families, some of us become parents, all of us continue to be woven into family life. Same-sex relationships do indeed affect everyone in society, and ignorant church attitudes such as those paraded by the bishops also affect everyone.

So, we are a multifaceted threat, we strike at the source from which society and culture come, do we? Our unions affect the intrinsic dignity of every human person? We affect religious freedom? Promoting and protecting marriage is a matter of justice? Protecting the lives and dignity of LGBT people where we are persecuted, humiliated, killed – this isn’t a matter of justice?

I feel incredible rage reading the Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter and want to write words which are appropriate to the ignorance and prejudice of the bishops but not appropriate to the blog. Oh boy, do we have a lot of work to do to change church attitudes. Sad that those who should be holy and wise are the purveyors of homophobic and dangerous teaching.