Belgian agency to file charges after cardinal calls gays 'perverts'

Published: 2004-01-27

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNS) -- A Belgian government-related anti-discrimination agency announced it would press charges against Cardinal Gustaaf Joos for comments he made about homosexuals in a magazine interview. The cardinal, an 80-year-old parish priest and retired professor of moral theology named to the College of Cardinals in October, said the vast majority of people who identify themselves as homosexual are not people struggling to live with a same-sex attraction, but are "sexual perverts." The Belgian Center for Equal Opportunity and the Fight Against Racism, a government-supported watchdog agency, said Jan. 23 it decided to press charges after the 80-year-old cardinal defended the interview in comments to television reporters. "I simply say what thousands of people think," the cardinal told VRT television after the interview appeared Jan. 21 in the Belgian men's magazine, P-Magazine.

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