If only it were always so easy and simple (perhaps if they didn't so demonize sexuality of any kind among the priesthood they wouldn't get so many devils for priests. ) I mean, really, it's not like innate temptation to sin is a new concept in Christianity; Christian doctrine, of almost every denomination, teaches that it's present in all of us: You recognize it, you acknowledge it, you repent the occasions when you succumb to it, asking Gods forgiveness and Grace, and you resist temptation in Christ. The particular form that takes is largely irrelevant. The miser forever tempted to steal and hoard is in the same boat: The temptation is constant, but it doesn't become sin until we succumb to it. Christ was tempted 40 days in the wilderness--but He never sinned. Note this more of an "I agree" than anything else. However....

I DO have a couple questions:

1) Why are you so certain Pope Benedict is a closeted homosexual? I doubt it would be the first time, mind; the Medieval Vatican is rather notorious for blithely ignoring any and all of the prohibitions it placed on both the clergy and the laity (hence Bishops who sought as assiduously as any other noble to protect their CHILDRENS welfare) it's just that, to borrow a line from the agnostics, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

2) Marriage is about raising rather than having children? What about childless couples, hetero or otherwise? Are their marriages somehow lesser? Because that seems counter to what you mean to advocate with the statements. And isn't raising children somewhat predicated on having children? I'm not of the ilk that says a child is better off going from diapers to diploma in an orphanage or with an abusive parent than with the awful gays who might HURT them rather than just regularly beating and brainwashing them like DECENT folk, but this goes to the core of why I honestly believe, with no malice, that same sex couples were not what God intended for humanity: If it were, IMHO, homosexual couples could bear children naturally. It's just one of many examples of how I think members of the opposite sex complement each other in ways that members of the same sex can't. I don't see the difference between male and female as a simple matter of hormones, and firmly believe that most, if not all, women will bring things to the table in a relationship that another man couldn't (and vice versa. )