Gay writer urges Italians to oppose same-sex civil unions bill
ROME – The majority of those in Italy who identify themselves as “gay” have no interest in “gay marriage” or civil unions, a gay Catholic writer told LifeSiteNewsin an interview this weekend.
“I would like to reveal something that perhaps no one has the courage to say; that Arcigay [the national Italian homosexualist lobby] represents only a small percentage of what people with homosexual impulses think. Someone has to say that the King is naked!”
The popular Rome-based Catholic blogger who identifies himself only as “Eliseo del Deserto” (Elisha of the Desert) continues a one-man campaign in favour of a different direction for gay people from that envisioned by the global homosexualist movement: one of voluntary chastity and reconciliation with God, a path that he maintains is the only way to personal peace and emotional growth.
“Civil unions? No thank you! Certainly there are rights that must be recognized in cohabitation, but the family is another thing. Marriage is another thing!” he said.
With the announcement by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi that a civil unions bill will come before Parliament by September, the homosexualist movement in Italy has achieved unprecedented success. Specifically citing the example of the recent British “gay marriage” law, which progressed from civil partnerships to the redefinition of marriage in a single year, Renzi has promisedthat the anticipated Italian law will grant same-sex partners all the rights and privileges of natural marriage except adoption.
But Eliseo said that these kinds of laws have little to do with the realities in the gay community. He cited a widely publicized US-based online consumer survey, taken in 2003-04 that found 31 percent of male same-sex relationships last between 1 and 3 years and 29 percent last between 4 and 7 years. Typically, he said, “marriage” simply is not an issue for male homosexuals. Pointing to the British experience, he said that once such legislative changes have been achieved, “the percentages of ‘marriages’ between persons of the same sex are very low.”
He warned that the Italian bill may pass largely unnoticed. “Most Italians, I believe are unaware of the changes that [Renzi] wants to implement, especially in ethics and the family. Then it will be too late,” he said. “In the vortex of the various Italian emergencies,” such as the economy, immigration and the country’s relationship with the EU, “Renzi is just trying not to sink.”
“Renzi is a convinced Catholic like me, so really, I would like to tell him, as an older brother, that I have lived as a homosexual.” In that conversation, “I would start by recognizing that among all the problems we have in Italy, that of de facto unions seems to me decidedly the last.”
As for what is coming next, Eliseo said that the civil unions bill, whatever Renzi and its parliamentary supporters say, is only the beginning, as it has been in other countries.
“I think that the ultimate goal of this policy is to achieve the adoption of children by homosexual couples and the legalization of the practice of the ‘uterus for rent’ [surrogacy]. Despite the Renzi plan on Civil Unions excluding adoptions for same-sex couples, the bill will allow ‘stepchild adoption,’ with serious repercussions on the education of children.”
But Eliseo is not “anti-gay.” He writes forthrightly about the suffering of people afflicted by same-sex feelings, but contrary to the insistence of the homosexualist movement, supports the solution offered by the Church, that of giving up the active “gay lifestyle” in favour of sexual self-control.
On a blog post dated May 28, he wrote, “It’s hard to believe in the love of God if you have not experienced it. So many things have made me feel the love of God, but most of all, ‘confession,’” a word, he wrote, that to some “smacks of a castor oil purge.”
But it is in confession, also called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, he finds the “warmth of a shelter during the night,” and a “place of a personal encounter with a father who did not scold me, but was waiting for me.”
“Through the sacrament of forgiveness, in meeting after meeting, I learned about the love of God, not so much in general, but in a personal way.” In the Catholic Church, this sacrament can be given only by priests, who, Eliseo said, with their words of compassion “drop by drop… carved out my heart of stone” and “unlocked situations that are like chains that imprison us.”
“I want to thank all those brave priests who have heard my confession at any place, at any hour of the day and night taking care of my wounds. … What a surprise to not get a slap, but a hug. Just so I could learn and know that God’s forgiveness has no boundaries, no limits.”
In this weekend’s interview with LifeSiteNews, he said the homosexualist “LGBTI” movement has gone the wrong direction. “I am convinced that as long as gay people continue to hide behind their sex drive, creating a false polarity between ‘homo’ and ‘hetero,’ then politics, psychology, media, etc., will be traveling on a false, imaginary track.”
“The only difference [between sexes] is what is biologically proven, between male and female. As a man or woman we have the rights and duties that are universal.”
“Then there is the law of common sense. If one day a large group of people around the world are asking to have beaks like eagles, do we recognize this as a right? If so our madness would be similar to their own.”
Asked why he did not support the LGBT movement, Eliseo said, “We are ready to support the rights of anyone, including animals, but most [gay activists] do not support the rights of natural families and especially those of children.”
He pointed to the notorious case of the well-known Italian singer, Adriano Celentano, who caused a scandal in the 1980s for helping promote a campaign against seal hunting with the slogan, “I am the son of the seal.”
Eliseo said, “Here today I cry, ‘I am the son of my mom and my dad.’”
LifeSiteNews asked whether his own position, that of a practicing Catholic with same-sex attractions, was common in Italy. Eliseo said, “It is very common! Usually they [gay activists] accuse the Catholic Church of not accepting gay people. Not so! Many have found refuge in the Church.”
“The Church is full of gay people who offer their wound to God. I cite Philippe Arino, a homosexual French Catholic, who says, ‘If you give your injury to God, it becomes an open heart.’”
“In a society where everything seems possible, Catholic sexual morality is depicted as megalomania, and a person is thought not to be truly free until he gives free rein to his sexual impulses.” But he believes, “A person is only really free in his sexuality when he knows how to manage his emotions.”
“Every act of love has its meaning and time of maturation: from the caress to sexual intercourse. The Church makes no distinction in this between heterosexuals and homosexuals.”
“We give too much importance to sex, I say, when you should discover that the greatest love, the culmination of all love, even romantic love, is friendship!”
He added that homosexuals “need to walk in the Church, man or woman, without labels.” Most have “suffered emotional distance” from their fathers and isolation from peers, and have continued this isolation by keeping exclusively homosexual friends.
“Pope Francis began his early days of his pontificate with the now famous phrase: ‘Do not steal the hope.’ We Catholics we let ourselves be frightened by this exhausting cultural revolution and ideological battles we engage in, allowing it to steal the [social] meeting space.
“At some point it becomes a style: ‘All those who do not think like me are my enemies, even if they are Catholics.’ Telling the truth does not necessarily imply having enemies. The mother tells her son not to put his fingers in the electrical socket, but her son is not her enemy.”
