For the "Media Malpractice" File - Remember that speech where Pope Benedict told the world that gay marriage was one of the threats to humanity?

Alternative title - "Homosexuality, not everything is about you."

Dan Savage mentioned it in his diatribe in order to accuse the Pope of claiming that the only thing standing between himself and sodomy was a piece of paper.

Then there is the Huffington Post and Reuters:

VATICAN CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined "the future of humanity itself".

The pope made some of his strongest comments against gay marriage in a new year address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican in which he touched on some economic and social issues facing the world today.

He told diplomats from nearly 180 countries that the education of children needed proper "settings" and that "pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman."

The funny thing is that the Pope didn't say any such thing, and nothing even close.

Andrew Brown at the Guardian points out:

On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican at which he didn't say a single word about gay marriage. You can read the whole thing here. So why is it news? Because Reuters and, following them, many other people reported that he had denounced gay marriage as a threat to western civilisation. Philip Pullella, who is one of the very best and most experienced Vatican correspondents, led his story: "Pope Benedict said Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined 'the future of humanity itself'."

So far as I can see, Pope Benedict just didn't. He did speak in favour of the family "based on the marriage of a man and woman". He did say that "policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself". But there was no suggestion that gay marriage was the most important of these and he didn't mention it at all, whereas he did take up several other sexual issues.

He went out of his way to praise a recent European court ruling that outlawed patents based on human stem cells. He said 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". That may be right or wrong. But it's not an attack on gay marriage, or even on homosexuality.

Here's the speech. I've read it. Here's the only passage that could get Savage's knickers in a twist:

Education is a crucial theme for every generation, for it determines the healthy development of each person and the future of all society. It thus represents a task of primary importance in this difficult and demanding time. In addition to a clear goal, that of leading young people to a full knowledge of reality and thus of truth, education needs 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”.[3] 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.

Can you just feel the call for violence against cringing homosexuals in schoolyards across America?

Brown is right. There is not the slightest basis for the headlines that read "Pope Benedict XVI: Gay Marriage A Threat To 'Future Of Humanity."

So, where does this nonsense come from? Are we at the point of post-modernism that there is no longer a felt need to attach one's truth claims to reality.