• Editor’s note: FINALLY! Same-sex couples in the United States may yet get the national recognition they deserve.
• I formerly lived in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, and to see loving, monogamous same-sex couples not afforded the same rights as heterosexual couples was painful to observe.
• When one in the couple was sick and hospitalized, the other could not get off of work to visit their partner because those rights did not exist, could not make life decisions with them in the final days, and could not share their belongings when they passed. This was heartbreaking!
• That is still occurring in states without legalized gay marriage is tragic.
• The Pope’s statement may finally move this planet forward from this scourge that needs to be in the rubbish bin of history!

“Pope calls for civil unions for same-sex couples, in major departure from Vatican doctrine”

“‘Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,’ the pontiff said in “Francesco,” a documentary about his life.”

“Pope Francis called for the passage of civil union laws for same-sex couples in a documentary that aired in Rome on Wednesday, in a major departure from the position held by the Vatican’s doctrinal office.

”Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,’ the Pontiff said in “Francesco,” a documentary about his life, according to the Catholic News Agency. ‘They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.’

“‘What we have to create is a civil union law,’ he added. ‘That way, they are legally covered. I stood up for that.’

“While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of civil unions as pope,” by Henry Austin, NBC News. Read more