News of the Pope’s representative in Britain, from today’s Telegraph:

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio, called for closer co-operation with other faiths as well as Christian denominations to put pressure on the Government over its plans to allow same-sex couples to marry.

In an address to Catholic bishops from England and Wales, he echoed the recent comments of Pope Benedict who said the Church faced “powerful political and cultural currents” in favour of redefining marriage.

His comments come after a series of high-level interventions by some Muslim and Jewish leaders last month after the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, launched a national consultation on how same-sex marriage might be introduced.

The first time I observed this phenomenon of common cause among otherwise adversarial religious-right groups was almost a decade ago in Massachusetts, when they banded together briefly in a failed attempt to place an anti-marriage-equality constitutional amendment on the ballot. Then as now, there was only one force strong enough to bridge the mistrust and mutual disdain that various conservative religious groups often hold for one other: anti-gay animus.

White evangelicals, Latino Charasimatics, Roman Catholics, Black Protestants, and Mormons were able to set aside their differences temporarily to pursue a common goal of depriving a small minority of equality under the law. How terribly sad that this kind of unity is only possible for the religious-right when the common goal is something punitive and hateful, not loving.