BY MICHAEL KEARNS

BODY PARTS & GENDER ROLES

Leave it to the papal to pinpoint what needs to be healed in the world: defining the distinction between man and woman. In his end-of-year speech at the Vatican, the “Gowned One” said that gender theory blurs the distinction between male and female, and called for "an ecology of the human being” to protect mankind "from self-destruction."

I’ll attempt to translate. Boys should be boys and girls should be girls.

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection,” Pope Benedict says, “but man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.” Huh?

In other words, global warming is important but it’s equally important that we adhere to the strict gender role we’re given at birth. Whew, this covers a lot of terrain, including the frenzied response to Obama’s questionable choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to pray at the Inauguration.

While specifically referring to homos and trannies, Pope Ben’s message seems to corroborate with much of the Rev. Ricky’s dogma before he scrubbed his Web site. From gay civil rights to women’s rights, these dudes agree that what we do with our bodies—that’s right, our penises and vaginas plus a few other parts—falls under the purview of religion. Whose religion? Not mine.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman.” We could put that fucking refrain to music, right? Why is marriage (sing along with me, now) between a man and a woman? Because when men and women fuck—penis in vagina, biologically speaking, or cock in pussy, in the vernacular—they can make babies. Queers can’t.

Procreation is the sole reason human beings should engage in sex, according to many religions whose membership includes a bunch of right-wing nut jobs. In their minds, marriage is meant to produce offspring, period. Forget love, commitment, sensuality, fun, commonalities, spirituality and shared dreams.

Extrapolating from this theory, man’s role is to fuck women and woman’s role is to pop out babies. This mandate rules out equality for the LGBT community including same-sex marriage and possibly adoption; in addition to women (and men) who are pro-choice; not to mention heterosexuals who opt not to have children or can’t (for whatever reasons, including biological idiosyncrasies and/or age).

Mr. Obama, what percentage of Americans fit into the above-mentioned categories?

Some of my best friends do.

Let’s take Jimmy and Sergio, recently married in Spain, despite the country’s deeply rooted Catholicism. While I’m not privy to their sexual positions, so to speak, I can only imagine that their lovemaking includes what likely makes the pope and the reverend, and just possibly the president-elect, a bit nervous: butt-fucking. Yeah, that’s right, taking it up the ass—let’s just say it, loud and proud! It’s one of the things we relish doing—for the delicious joy of it, not to make babies.

Then there’s Blu, a fabulous tranny hairdresser who resembles Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. “I’m a top,” she once announced to me with an unfettered degree of authority. While Blu has had her tits done (think Penelope Cruz cleavage), she (and I mean “she”) isn’t chopping off that dick anytime soon. Her choices, honey, not necessarily yours or mine.

My het gal-pal Dana, 40-ish, got married last year, but has no intention to get preggers. “I had my tubes tied years ago,” she says, nonchalantly. A sexy woman who embodied goth before it became fashionable, Dana simply cannot fathom the notion of child-bearing.

Married (temporarily, anyway) in West Hollywood last year, John and Felipe want to adopt and they will be exemplary fathers in spite of the fact that they are cocksuckers. Don’t play that “children need to be raised by a mother and father” song for me; children need to be raised by people who are able to love and care for them.

Jimmy, Sergio, Blu, Dana, John and Felipe aren’t perverts or freaks. They are scintillatingly human, created—by my God—in varying shades of grey. They are forging a new world, one in which difference is to be celebrated, not ruled against; a world that thankfully blurs gender and encourages authenticity.

Finally, let us celebrate a world that respects our planet’s evolution while honoring the evolution of man and woman in all its complexity and beauty.