Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the holy water… along comes the Pope to remind you why it’s great to be an atheist at Christmas. Could there be a message more loaded with hypocritical intolerance and bigotry masquerading as academic speculation, than the Pontiff’s pontificating on gender theory this Yule?

This after all is a man who has spent his life in the company of other men, wears a frock, and presides over an organisation that for decades has turned a blind eye to predatory sex abuse by employees.

Ah yes the social conservatives will say… ‘he’s not anti-gay’, ‘heck some of his best friends are homosexual’… albeit non-practicing, and he’s made statements to the effect that he does not condone anti-gay acts of discrimination… but this is to give a fig leaf of respectability to words that convey an undercurrent of corrosive hate far more insidious than the more blatant ignorance of the mostly male homophobes who choose to show the worst side of their gender through mindless violence.

The notion that homosexuality, transexuality, or heterosexuals who display atypical gender characteristics are a threat to the future of humanity ‘akin to climate change’ is such palpable nonsense that it barely merits response. However, since social conservatives have lately taken to justifying their prejudices by claiming themselves victims of hatred by those who disagree with them, let us address this with reason.

First even if we were all ‘so gay’ that all procreation revolted us, we would not die out. The implication we might shows no respect to millions of gay couples who have carried, cared for and raised children as their own, even if only one partner was the genetic donor. An ‘all gay world’ might be very different to one we live in today, and no doubt every bit as odd as an all-straight one, but it would not be a morgue.

Second, we are not all gay and human homosexuality, as with other animals is a minority pursuit; one that there increasing evidence to suggest has ‘natural’ social benefits, such as reducing male competition for females, or providing recourse to sexual release that doesn’t result in children. Not all genes are selfish.

Third, unlike climate change, the idea that there are men’s men and women’s women, and that is how we should be has no basis in science. We are instead incredibly diverse in our natures, and nurturing to condition us into ‘natural’ roles can be profoundly damaging to those who do not fit so-called ‘norm’.