On Tuesday's edition of The View on ABC, the ladies once again held a completely unanimous liberal discussion on gay marriage, with the alleged conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck leading the denunciation of social conservatives, including Pope Benedict. On Monday, Pope Benedict spoke up for the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman, but nowhere in the address did he actually discuss the concept of gay marriage. It was more of a pro-life message.
But no one at The View reads original transcripts. "Someone wasn't invited to Elton John's wedding," Joy Behar joked. “Someone’s ticked off.” Hasselbeck chimed in. "I think a big mistake that people make, in saying that something works against humanity to me seems quite inhumane. I was raised Catholic, I consider myself Christian now, but I’ll probably get some letters after today," Hasselbeck said. [Video follows]
"I think about my marriage, and gay marriage doesn't affect my marriage. You know what affects my marriage? Divorce,” said Hasselbeck. “So for people to actually say that gay marriage is harming marriage and the idea of marriage to me seems inhumane...and at the same time doesn’t seem to make sense."
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“Un-Christian,” muttered Whoopi Goldberg in the middle of Hasselbeck’s last sentence.
ABC could have invited a Catholic expert with TV experience -- say, George Weigel or Raymond Arroyo -- to discuss the Vatican view on these matters, but they seem to prefer to make uninformed and unanimous remarks.
ABC producers were probably relying on press reports like Philip Pullella of Reuters, whose headline was "Gay marriage a threat to humanity's future: Pope". But there is no reference to homosexuality or gay marriage in the remarks, just the promotion of traditional marriage. See the Pope's remarks in context, and see how it's more of a pro-life passage. He was talking about young people and their educational settings:
Among these, pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman. This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself. The family unit is fundamental for the educational process and for the development both of individuals and States; hence there is a need for policies which promote the family and aid social cohesion and dialogue.
It is in the family that we become open to the world and to life and, as I pointed out during my visit to Croatia, “openness to life is a sign of openness to the future”. In this context of openness to life, I note with satisfaction the recent sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union forbidding patenting processes relative to human embryonic stem cells, as well as the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemning prenatal selection on the basis of sex.
More generally, and with particular reference to the West, I am convinced that legislative measures which not only permit but at times even promote abortion for reasons of convenience or for questionable medical motives compromise the education of young people and, as a result, the future of humanity.
You could still be an outraged liberal abortion advocate about these remarks. But they don't match the framing of liberal wire services like Reuters.
