"Unusual Couples" plan Protest against Mexico's Catholic Church

Protesting social activists and members of "unusual couples," as the Catholic Church calls gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and transsexual unions, are discussing possible actions to be taken on Jan. 13-18, 2009 when Mexico hosts the Sixth World Meeting of Families organised by the Vatican.

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The World meeting of Families, which revolves around the concept that a family can only be formed by a man, a woman and their children, will take place in our nation's capital, Mexico City, where the municipal government and legislative body have clashed repeatedly with Catholic Church authorities over municipal laws that recognise same-sex civil unions, legalise abortion, allow transsexuals to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity, and recognise the right of terminal patients to suspend medical treatment.

The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, will not be present, but more than 30 cardinals and 200 bishops from different countries will be participating, as well as hundreds if not thousands, of Catholic families from around the world.

The meeting is convened under the theme "The Family: Teacher of Human and Christian Values," and participants will discuss their faith and encourage all Catholics to embrace "a virtuous, moral conscience" at a time when, according to the Pope, "there is often a divorce between what one claims to believe and the way one actually lives."

The organizers have urged participants to repeatedly offer a certain prayer for families which clearly illustrates the Church’s view of the family as a heterosexual union formed for the sole purpose of reproduction.

"They say we’re not a family, but we are, and we’re also Catholic and proud of it. It’s unfair for them to exclude and demonise us for forming part of a different kind of couple," Esteban Carillo, an electronics specialist who lives with another man.

Carrillo and a group of friends plan to gather with signs and a "surprise" element in front of the Banamex bank convention centre in Mexico City and loudly voice their "right to be who we are, and demand to be respected and acknowledged as part of the Catholic community."

In 2006 same-sex couples were termed "unusual families" in a document entitled "Family and Human Procreation" distributed by the Pontifical Council for the Family.

In October 2004, at the Eucharistic Congress held in Mexico, it was declared that the Catholic Church would never accept homosexuality as something "normal."

"It is unacceptable to maintain that anything living under the same roof -- including cockroaches, cats and dogs -- can be called a family, which is what those who defend homosexual marriage want," Bishop Javier Lozano, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Health

What a loving message Bishop Lozano gives. Only a truly loving, tolerant religion could compare a heartfelt life union of God's children, usual or unusual, to that of "cockroaches, cats and dogs."

The basic commandments of the Bible are love and justice, tolerance of others. Mexico is a deeply Catholic country but not deeply Christian. Christianity is loving one another; usuals and unusuals.

"With these laws, the city’s authorities have only furthered the breakdown of the family." Enrique Glennie, executive secretary of the Mexican Episcopate Conference’s Family Pastoral

I'm pretty sure Mexico City's legalization of same-sex unions and abortion, much less their allowing transsexual's to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity and terminally ill patient's the right to suspend medical treatment is not the cause of the dysfunction and destruction of families across our nation.

The Rev. Enrique Maza has just published "Rostros del Hombre" (Faces of Man), in which he says that the Bible continues to be a valid work "in its description of what a human being should be."

Maza believes that a free union of two people, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be considered marriage, something now being considered by the Mexico City municipal assembly.

In that respect, he said that one of the most serious problems of the Catholic Church is its tendency to impose its own criteria, as happens with its rejection of homosexual unions.

"If the Catholic Church doesn't change, and I don't believe it will, that is because it has a terrible blindness...People are going to leave it," said Maza

As for couples, although the Church will claim different, there is no mention of man or woman in the definition. According to the dictionary a couple is:

-two persons considered as joined together, as a married or engaged pair, lovers, or dance partners: They make a handsome couple.

-any two persons considered together.

The destruction of our families is caused by poverty, emmigration, violence, negligence, corruption, drugtrafficking, adultery and addictions, not by homosexuals and their wish to be aknowledged and practice their faith.

In a country where so much has gone wrong, people are not only looking for, but need a reason to keep living; tranquility, acceptance, guidance, hope. The Church claims to offer the above to all of it's faithful followers, so how is it possible to not allow respect, tolerance, and aknowledgment of those who's only sin is being "unusual" and in love?