<p align=center><em>Coalition of four Catholic groups offers &ldquo;healthier godly&rdquo; vision of&nbsp;human family</em></p> <p>WASHINGTON D. C. December 21--Pope Benedict XVI and the&nbsp;Vatican bureaucracy have released a number of troubling statements in recent&nbsp;days disparaging lesbian gay bisexual&nbsp;and transgender people and speaking&nbsp;against their right to be treated fairly in civil society.</p> <!--break--> <p>In&nbsp;L&rsquo;Osservatore&nbsp;Romano historian Lucetta Scaraffia compared proponents of marriage&nbsp;equality to 20th-century communists who wooed millions with their promise of&nbsp;perfect social and&nbsp;economical equality.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> In an address released earlier this week the pope labeled&nbsp;same-sex marriage as a threat to world peace.&nbsp;&nbsp;Yesterday in a speech to Vatican bureaucrats he denounced what he&nbsp;described as people who manipulate their God-given gender to suit their sexual&nbsp;choices &mdash; and destroying the very &quot;essence of the human creature&quot; in&nbsp;the process.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> These harsh statements are particularly dispiriting at this&nbsp;sacred time of year when families that include LGBT children parents and&nbsp;grandparents gather to celebrate the birth of the&nbsp;Christ child. We could find&nbsp;fault with Ms. Scaraffia&rsquo;s historical comparison or the pope&rsquo;s rigid and&nbsp;outmoded understanding of what it means to be a man or a woman. Instead we&nbsp;remember&nbsp;that Jesus when asked by messengers from John the Baptist whether He was the&nbsp;Messiah told them to go back and tell John about what they saw happening&nbsp;all around&nbsp;them:&nbsp;&nbsp;the sick were being&nbsp;healed the lame made to walk and good news was being proclaimed to the poor.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> What we see when we look around us are heterosexual parents&nbsp;loving their LGBT children and advocating for their dignity and equality;&nbsp;same-gender couples creating safe and happy&nbsp;homes for their children; and&nbsp;transgender people like those whom the pope criticizes living healthy mature&nbsp;and generous lives.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> Increasingly Catholics in the United States and around the&nbsp;world see what we see. Catholics following their own well-formed consciences&nbsp;are voting to support equal rights for LGBT&nbsp;people because in their churches and&nbsp;communities they see a far healthier godly and realistic vision of the human&nbsp;family than the one offered by the pope. We commend it to him for&nbsp;his&nbsp;consideration.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> <em>&nbsp;Equally Blessed is a coalition of four Catholic organizations&nbsp;that have spent more than 120 years working on behalf of lesbian gay bisexual&nbsp;and transgender people and their families.&nbsp;Collectively and individually Call&nbsp;To Action DignityUSA Fortunate Families and New Ways Ministry are devoted to&nbsp;informing supporting and giving voice to the growing majority within the&nbsp;Catholic Church in the United States that favors equality under law for LGBT&nbsp;people.</em><br /> &nbsp;<br /> <br /> &nbsp;</p>