Do not believers, by virtue of the great culture of their faith, have the right to make a pronouncement on all this?

Shrimp here: downstream a reader weighs in with the opinion that Christians are above all to be kind to one another and doesn't all this talk about homosexuality violate this basic precept. A regular responded that ignoring someones actions which bring harm upon themselves is hardly kindness, hardly love. Both positions are understandable and the latter is where I usually come out. Perhaps an even better answer is given below in the Pope's Christmas message. Here's a point I hope people regard thoughtfully and respond in kind: the gay agenda wants to frame this controversy as a justice issue and has been so successful that NPR reporters report the other side as "anti-gay." Nothing factual there. The pope makes the point that these new pioneers of what it means to be human are actually anti-person, anti-human, anti-family, anti-faith. A human person is much more than their biological make-up. "Man and woman, He made them" means much more than one has a penis and one doesn't.

Is it really up to each person to decide who they are?

"Yet, precisely through the effort of supporting one another day by day, precisely through accepting one another ever anew in the crucible of daily trials, living and suffering to the full their initial "yes", precisely on this Gospel path of "losing oneself", they had matured, rediscovered themselves and become happy. Their "yes" to one another in the patience of the journey and in the strength of the Sacrament with which Christ had bound them together, had become a great "yes" to themselves, their children, to God the Creator and to the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Thus, from the witness of these families a wave of joy reached us, not a superficial and scant gaiety that is all too soon dispelled, but a joy that developed also in suffering, a joy that reaches down to the depths and truly redeems man. Before these families with their children, before these families in which the generations hold hands and the future is present, the problem of Europe, which it seems no longer wants to have children, penetrated my soul. To foreigners this Europe seems to be tired, indeed, it seems to be wishing to take its leave of history. Why are things like this? This is the great question. The answers are undoubtedly very complex. Before seeking these answers, it is only right to thank the many married couples in our Europe who still say "yes" to children today and accept the trials that this entails: social and financial problems, as well as worries and struggles, day after day; the dedication required to give children access to the path towards the future. In mentioning these difficulties, perhaps the reasons also become clearer why for many the risk of having children appears too great. A child needs loving attention. This means that we must give children some of our time, the time of our life. But precisely this "raw material" of life -- time -- seems to be ever scarcer. The time we have available barely suffices for our own lives; how could we surrender it, give it to someone else? To have time and to give time - this is for us a very concrete way to learn to give oneself, to lose oneself in order to find oneself. In addition to this problem comes the difficult calculation: what rules should we apply to ensure that the child follows the right path and in so doing, how should we respect his or her freedom? The problem has also become very difficult because we are no longer sure of the norms to transmit; because we no longer know what the correct use of freedom is, what is the correct way to live, what is morally correct and what instead is inadmissible. The modern spirit has lost its bearings, and this lack of bearings prevents us from being indicators of the right way to others. Indeed, the problem goes even deeper. Contemporary man is insecure about the future. Is it permissible to send someone into this uncertain future? In short, is it a good thing to be a person? This deep lack of self assurance -- plus the wish to have one's whole life for oneself -- is perhaps the deepest reason why the risk of having children appears to many to be almost unsustainable. In fact, we can transmit life in a responsible way only if we are able to pass on something more than mere biological life, and that is, a meaning that prevails even in the crises of history to come and a certainty in the hope that is stronger than the clouds that obscure the future. Unless we learn anew the foundations of life - unless we discover in a new way the certainty of faith -- it will be less and less possible for us to entrust to others the gift of life and the task of an unknown future. Connected with that, finally, is also the problem of definitive decisions: can man bind himself for ever? Can he say a "yes" for his whole life? Yes, he can. He was created for this. In this very way human freedom is brought about and thus the sacred context of marriage is also created and enlarged, becoming a family and building the future. At this point, I cannot be silent about my concern about the legislation for de facto couples. Many of these couples have chosen this way because -- at least for the time being -- they do not feel able to accept the legally ordered and binding coexistence of marriage. Thus, they prefer to remain in the simple de facto state. When new forms of legislation are created which relativize marriage, the renouncement of the definitive bond obtains, as it were, also a juridical seal. In this case, deciding for those who are already finding it far from easy becomes even more difficult. Then there is in addition, for the other type of couple, the relativization of the difference between the sexes. The union of a man and a woman is being put on a par with the pairing of two people of the same sex, and tacitly confirms those fallacious theories that remove from the human person all the importance of masculinity and femininity, as though it were a question of the purely biological factor. Such theories hold that man -- that is, his intellect and his desire -- would decide autonomously what he is or what he is not. In this, corporeity is scorned, with the consequence that the human being, in seeking to be emancipated from his body -- from the "biological sphere" -- ends by destroying himself. If we tell ourselves that the Church ought not to interfere in such matters, we cannot but answer: are we not concerned with the human being? Do not believers, by virtue of the great culture of their faith, have the right to make a pronouncement on all this? Is it not their -- our -- duty to raise our voices to defend the human being, that creature who, precisely in the inseparable unity of body and spirit, is the image of God?"