It's funny when people say this, because Jesus made it clear his purpose was to spread the gospel and die for our sins so we could be with the Lord. People try to water him down as some sort of hippie whose message was just love and conveniently forget that he set forth a very strict moral code for us to live by. Jesus made it very clear to obey and listen to God's word, and which clearly states that acts of homosexuality are a great sin. Jesus treated all with love, but he never excused immorality. What the pope said should not be a surprise to anyone, since he, above all others(at least from a catholic point of view), dedicates his life to the church that Christ instituted here on earth.

And as for a few other things in this thread...

The whole "I believe in God/Jesus but not in organized religion"-line doesnt fly if you really believe in the teachings of God/Jesus. The Christian church is an institution began by Christ(as mentioned above). You cannot say you are a beliver in Christ and his teachings, but demonize the very church he began, since that is in opposition to his teachings.

About the supposed priest who belives in the teachings of Jesus but is an athiest: if this is true he wont be a priest for long. You cannot be catholic/christian, much less a priest, unless you fully accept the teachings of Christ. Among the teachings of Jesus were that He was the Son of God and that the way to salvation was through Him only. This is another case of "I belive in Jesus, the man and His teachings, but all the stuff I'm not comfortable with I will conveniently ignore".

And the catholic church does not hate homosexuals, rather it teaches compassion and acceptance to homosexuals. However, the church does not accept the "gay" lifestyle/practicing homosexuality as being morally acceptable.

Not trying to rile folks up, as I think its best leave this stuff out of sites like this, but SOME(not all) of the people in this thread I saw defending the pope/catholicism/christianity didnt exactly do a bang-up job(though I did not read all of the thread and did read some good posts). I figure if it's ok to slam, slander, and make false statements about my faith, it's certainly acceptable to defend it.

That being said, anyone up for some Burgertime?

There's a lot of "worst idea ever"'s that people do, such as marriage, divorce, adoption, wills, elections, governments, driving.

But they all tend to work out more or less based on a combination of social attitudes and civil law.  I imagine that in our crazy hypothetical, a whole hell ofa lot of people would be doing it, and would end up being a fairly structured and most likely legally regulated thing.

On a side note, in our crazy new world, there would probably also be more government assistance and incentives for child rearing if they were concerned about population.

I'm telling you... as someone who knows a thing or two about psychology AND sociology that would be a horrible horrible situation.

Surrogates like that are better when anonymous and set up by agencies required to keep confidentiality.  It leads to way too many sticky situations otherwise.

really? Your taking the "I know all about this situation and you don't" tact? That kind of thing might fly on the sales forum, but it's kind of a silly argument elsewhere.

I'm just saying I have  Psychology degree and almost had a sociological degree.  It's a very bad thing.

My girlfriend agrees... and she has a Psychology Degree, Sociology degree... Sociology masters degree and is going for a doctorate in sociology.

Ask anyone with a sociology or psychology degree...

It wouldn't work... it would cause way too many psychological and sociological problems.

Heck, that kind of thing already has problems now a days among infertile people.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/petition-the-pm.html

For UK residents. 10,000 people have signed in the past 2 days.

I didn't actually mean what I said. I was just turning Tyrannical's comment on its head.

signed it

Done and done.