Cardinal’s Hatemongering ‘Dishonest, Destructive and Dangerous’

Cardinal Winning’s campaign to block the repeal of Section 28 was condemned today by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) as dishonest, destructive and dangerous.

Commenting on statements made by Cardinal Winning, GALHA’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “The propaganda being disseminated by Cardinal Winning is false and dishonest. He is scaremongering not to protect children, as he claims, but to promote a narrow Catholic agenda. Even before Section 28 was introduced there was no widespread ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools. It seems that for people like Cardinal Winning, merely mentioning the topic is tantamount to ‘promoting’ it. He has enthusiastically embraced the myths that have grown up around Section 28 and is now promoting them as fact.

“He says that keeping Section 28 will not encourage bullying in schools. The sad fact is that homophobic bullying is rife in schools. You only have stand in a playground for five minutes to hear words like ‘poof’ and ‘queer’ being bandied about. Children who are gay or lesbian live in constant fear of either being exposed or being humiliated in school, and often this leads to deep depression and thoughts of suicide. Last year a coroner in Rotherham, Yorkshire, found that a young boy had killed himself after hearing the television evangelist Pat Robertson making anti-gay remarks. How will Cardinal Winning feel when he reads about his first victim?

“We are horrified to hear a man who is supposedly promoting compassion being so complacent about the welfare of these children.

“Explaining the facts about homosexuality to youngsters is not promoting it – it is simply trying to encourage them to understand people who are different to them. Wild talk about ‘sexual acts’ in the classroom are outright lies. Cardinal Winning’s rantings are destructive, in that they create barriers between people where there should be none. The Cardinal says in today’s Daily Telegraph that he intends to forbid any mention of homosexual acts in Catholic schools in Scotland. I doubt very much whether anybody ever had any intention of mentioning ‘homosexual acts’. But if he is planning to impose a blanket ban on any mention of homosexuality, then he is creating a dangerous precedent that must be resisted. What next? No mention of evolution? And certainly no mention of Sister Lavinia Byrne!

“Rather than trying to invoke feelings of self-righteousness in his followers, Cardinal Winning should ask himself whether hate is a Christian value he wants to promote.”