The Malcontent

DNA: The Marriage Issue (Plus Obligatory Sex)

Just in time for spring, the new issue of DNA magazine is all about love and marriage.  Apropos of nothing and dropped in the midst of the nuptial bliss is one of the hot guys of menaustralia.com.

Click to "uncensor" the image (NSFW).

More from DNA after the jump, including why porn star Lucas Ridgeston hung up the cum-rag ... and the gay Catholic blogger who opposes marriage equality.

More Like St. Peter and the Wolf

This was only a matter of time.

Notwithstanding the tight shot of the tight T-shirt on the well-endowed woman in the clips shown to critics, the docu-soap "God or the Girl" treated the four young men trying to decide whether to enter the priesthood with the utmost respect . . . As filmmakers, they wanted to take advantage of the controversy in which the Catholic Church has mired itself. . . Mark Wolper told the Reporters Who Cover Television that "we completely shifted 180 degrees as a result of what we learned from these gentlemen and how much respect grew in us for their decision, for them as men and for the struggle they were going through."

Reality TV is a bit of a misnomer in this case. A more true to life depiction might be giving four would-be priests front row seats at a Jesse McCartney concert and letting the cameras roll. Whoever tackles the pubescent pop star first is immediately accepted into the nearest seminary.

Perhaps they'll have segments a la Temptation Island. Trips to A&F photo shoots, college locker rooms, and a local Chuck E. Cheese.

What? I'm supposed to believe Catholic priests are struggling with their insatiable lust for women? Please.

"Transitory" vs. "Deep-Seated"

In light of the new Vatican policy, PAYOR has a handy guide for all would-be priests.  (I was going to make a joke about things that are "deep-seated," but will instead refrain.)

Pope Catholic, Activists Outraged

The long-dreaded Document of Homosexual Doom has made its way into the media in all its satanic glory:

The Vatican is ordering seminaries to bar candidates for the priesthood who "practice homosexuality," have "deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" or support "gay culture," according to a document published Tuesday by Adista, a Catholic news agency in Rome.

As the article notes, there is very little new in the Church's position. Their theology isn't exactly keen on homosexuality, and there are plenty of seminaries that more resemble gay frat houses than places of prayer and celibacy. Believe me, I have personal experience and have written on this issue in greater detail here.

Suffice to say, the Church's sex abuse scandal had an 80% rate of male priests with teenaged boys. That is not pedophilia, but ephebophilia - an almost entirely different creature. They had to do something about it. They have by going after seminary culture.

I don't care for the Church's attitudes on homosexuality. It is one of the many reasons why I didn't retain my Catholicism into adulthood. However, there is a major, major problem with same-sex abuse and celibacy in Catholic seminaries. The LGBT groups currently going apoplectic by thinking the Church is entirely off-base in what they're doing need to get a grip. All of this didn't appear out of thin air.

Sucking the Life Out of Christ

I remember reading Interview with the Vampire as a sophmore in third period World Civilization, quietly poring over every word of the scene under the Theater Des Vampires. A young boy "pressed his sex" into Louis' leg, and I surreptitiously slid a biology text to hide my own. Still struggling with my sexuality, Anne Rice's works were my first window into homo-eroticism and love between two men, undead as they were.

I rifled through the series, devouring the Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and the Tale of the Body Thief. In Memnoch the Devil, Rice rediscovered Jesus.

It was all downhill from there.

Amplecti Reginae

Faced with the  conundrum of just who would design all those fabulous outfits used in Vatican ceremonies (just look at that shade of pink!), the Catholic Church seems set to keep celibate gay priests on board:

VATICAN CITY (Oct. 7) - The Vatican will allow gay men into the priesthood if they can show they have been celibate for at least three years, leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported on Friday.

I'm sure the usual heretical hysterics will be throwing out a retraction any day now.

I've written on this issue before. To summarize, Catholic seminaries have been chock full of non- celibate homosexuals for ages, and everyone knows it. When 80-95% of the pederasty/ephebophilia incidents are male on male action, it behooved the church to take a closer look at seminarian culture and come down on non-celibate priests with more ferocity.

Under the new guidelines, it seems that is exactly what the Vatican is proposing. Gay and celibate, straight and celibate? Who cares. As long as you're celibate and true to your vows.

There's much to disagree with the Church on, which is exactly why I haven't been Catholic since roughly my confirmation. Hey, when all that family money for Church milestones ran dry, I wasn't hanging around.

But, this seems to be a very fair policy to the good, decent gay priests out there who remain true to their vows.

The Real Culture War

They were being persecuted, while others wrestled over the minutiae of the Lutheran Church. The executor fit the nooses snugly around their necks. We found the intra-faith dynamics of lesbian ministers fascinating. And while the rest of the world shouted in protest, we remained thunderously silent.

In the American culture wars, we wrestle over abortion, gay marriage, Tinky Winky, and whether or not God punished New Orleans for the excellent Southern Decadence festival. Safely ensconced in a society and nation firmly rooted in the values of the Enlightenment and individual freedom, too many of those who claim to speak for us have allowed themselves to wallow in their own pet, partisan causes as a growing darkness menaces the Western world.

Many of us now find ourselves asking, "American GLBT Groups - Where are you?"

The Catholic Church must love the publicity it is getting in the NYC gossip tabs.  Proving that not all priests are homos or pedophiles, the latest scandal involves Eugene Clark, a randy 79-year-old Bronx monsignor who apparently has been performing various rites on his married, Daisy Dukes-wearing secretary.

Paris Hilton has ditched her bitch: her teacup Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, has become too big an accessory to fit into her designer handbags.  Paris gave the dog to her mom and traded "down" to a smaller pup named Bambi.  (And least she's better than the regular people who throw their kids in a dumpster.)

Ashlee Simpson says she has "battled demons," or as the rest of us know it, the quite satanic Acid Reflux Syndrome.  And now the non-singer wants another shot on Saturday Night Live.  Let's hope the audience is nicer than the Orange Bowl fans who lustily booed her.