During a recent visit to Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI called same-sex marriage one of the most “insidious and dangerous” threats facing the world today, reported the Associated Press.

Two consenting adults of the same sex having their love legally recognized is, to this pontiff, apparently a greater threat than al-Qaeda, global warming, genocide, world hunger, and Iranian nuclear weapons — or at least it’s right up there with them.

Yep, those gentle, loving gay couples are going to destroy the world!

Of course, this is the same pope who spent years covering up cases of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. It became a trend. And it’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

Back in 2001, when we still knew him as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he issued a secret edict to all Catholic bishops, which was later leaked by the British press. In it, Ratzinger ordered that “the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret,” and asserted “the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.” In other words, keep it all under wraps until the statutes of limitations expire. It’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

The following year, he had the nerve and arrogance to discount the crisis and try to shift the blame, referring to media coverage of clergy sex abuse as a plot to discredit the Church. Again, it’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

Priests who molested children were not disciplined, fired, and turned over to the appropriate legal authorities. Instead, they were transferred to other parishes, where they were free to molest a whole new crop of young people. Victims were told to remain silent under threat of excommunication or hellfire. You see, it’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

And, while the pope now speaks out against the molestations in the wake of new scandals that have erupted throughout Europe, it’s much too little, much too late. It’s just lip service, and talk is cheap. Obviously, it’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

The fact remains that, for all those years, this so-called “holy” man tolerated and enabled clergy sex abuse with impunity. And countless young people have suffered, and continue to suffer, as the pain of molestation tends to haunt its victims for life.

Is that not a far greater sin than recognizing the bond of a loving couple, which is what same-sex marriage is all about?

Of course, just as the Church doesn’t let facts, logic, or reason get in the way of its dogma, its leaders are not going to let facts, logic, or reason get in the way of their PR. And they’re not going to let love and compassion (which, I believe, are what Jesus was all about) get in the way of their own distorted view of morality.

So I guess it’s OK to molest young boys as long as you don’t try to marry them.

Because it’s all about the PR, not about the sins.

I used to think that BP was rare among oil companies, because its ads expressed a concern for the environment, and the company was allegedly also working on alternative energy sources. I believed the PR and fell for the green-and-sunny-looking logo. After all, BP’s website talks about how the company is invested in the development of wind, solar, and hydrogen energy, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage.

But then my bubble burst.

In the wake of the Gulf Coast oil spill, my research into BP showed me its true colors. And its true colors aren’t so sunny. The only green thing BP really seems to care about is money, not the earth or its inhabitants (unless, of course, you inhabit the board room).

It seems that this oil spill was both predictable and preventable — if only BP had cared.

It seems that a safety device was available for $500,000 which could have prevented the oil disaster. This acoustic switch would trigger an underwater valve to shut down a well in case of a blowout, like the one that recently happened in the Gulf. BP, however, decided that $500,000 was too much to spend on safety, despite the fact that its 2009 profits totaled some $14 billion. So BP spent its money instead on working with Dick Cheney to block regulations that would have required the use of this and other safety precautions.

And it doesn’t end there. BP turns out to have a long and solid history of forgoing safety in favor of profits.

For instance, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board determined that a 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers happened because a “combination of cost-cutting, production, and failure to invest [in precautions] caused a progressive deterioration of safety at the refinery.”

There you go. This $14-billion-per-year company doesn’t care about its workers. This $14-billion-per-year company doesn’t really care about the planet. This $14-billion-per-year company doesn’t care what kind of environmental legacy it leaves behind for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of its executives and directors (never mind the rest of us). It seems to care only about short-term profits from year to year. The company’s directors, after all, will likely be dead before the worst effects of climate change become reality. So it’s invisible despite the lip service.

If BP wants to keep its logo green, it will need to ditch the sunny motif and go with a currency theme, for truth in advertising.

Better yet, superimpose the image of a blackened, oil-covered duck onto the green and yellow sunburst.

Or, best of all, learn a lesson, give up on dinosaur oil, and shift all the company’s resources into alternative energy development going forward.

Only then will the existing logo still work. But I shall not hold my breath.

Conservative American white men are terribly afraid these days. And rightly so.

They are finally starting to lose their power.

First of all, May 9, 2010, marked the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. On that date in 1960, the pill was approved for use in the U.S. by the Federal Drug Administration. And American women finally had control over our reproductive lives.

It was a turning point, to be sure.

Before the pill was available, a sexually active woman almost always faced the risk of pregnancy. And, prior to Roe v. Wade, a pregnant woman was forced to bear the child with or without the baby’s father’s financial or emotional support, or else seek a dangerous and illegal back-alley abortion.

For the men, however, there were no official consequences. And they got used to that.

Sowing their wild oats was what men were expected to do. If a woman did the same, she was labeled a slut and allegedly deserved the consequences.

These days, even in the 21st century, women who enjoy sex are still labeled as sluts by men (and even some women) who fear female sexual power. But the joke is now on the men who disrespect their female counterparts, because those men are looking more and more foolish in their whining as they lose more and more of their power in government, in business, and in the bedroom.

After all, we now have our third female U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who was also a serious candidate for President of this country.

And we now have our first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who is next in line for the Presidency after President Obama and Vice President Biden.

In the business world, statistics for the period from 1997 through 2006 showed that women-owned businesses grew at nearly twice the rate of all U.S. firms (42.3% vs. 23.3%).

The misogynistic right can’t stand it. And so they resort to kindergarten-style sexist commentary, and sometimes bullying tactics.

Like the men who shouted, “Iron my shirt!” at a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in 2008.

Like the House Republicans who preach that Speaker Pelosi should be put “in her place.”

To these guys, I guess, a woman’s place is still in the kitchen — barefoot and pregnant, as they used to phrase it back in the day.

And I cringe when I think that this may be what they think is appropriate for their own daughters. Fortunately, however, their daughters today have choices and will hopefully be more open-minded about them. (I hold up the beautiful and open-minded Meghan McCain as a powerful example of conservative offspring gone modern.)

Meanwhile, it gets even worse for the bigoted and insecure American white man. After all, the 1960s also marked the height of the civil rights movement.

And so, not only are women a growing majority in the white man’s sacred political and business worlds, but people of color are also closing in.

We now have a dark-skinned U.S. President.

And statistics show that the non-white population in the U.S. is slowly but surely edging its way into a demographic majority.

So I contend that the rise of the right-wing tea party movement is no coincidence. It’s a reaction to the changes of the past 50 years — and the changes yet to come — that threaten the status quo — i.e., the social and political superiority of the white man in America.

And they will do all they can to fight it. And it will continue to get uglier and uglier.

But, fortunately for the cause of fairness and equality for all of humanity (not just white males), it is only a matter of time until they are outnumbered.

I can’t wait.

He’s back: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, aka “Dr. Death” — advocate for euthanasia and assisted suicide, or what many of us see as the right of terminally ill patients to choose a quick and dignified death over a painful, lingering one.

On April 24, HBO premiered its original film You Don’t Know Jack, starring Al Pacino as Dr. Kevorkian and Susan Sarandon as the head of a local chapter of the Hemlock Society, an advocacy organization for end-of-life choices. And I’ve been hearing follow-up conversations in all kinds of places, from the hair salon to the supermarket checkout line.

Some are likening Kevorkian’s services to the imaginary death panels that Sarah Palin warned us about. I heard one right-winger speculate jokingly that Obama might want to appoint Jack Kevorkian as his Surgeon General for ObamaCare. While amusing, his comment was far from credible.

Dr. Kevorkian’s services were not designed to save insurance companies or the medical industry money. His services were meant to relieve the unbearable suffering of the terminally ill. Despite the theatrics that surrounded Kevorkian’s work, assisted suicide is a serious issue that continues to impact the lives of dying adults and their families, as well as others who believe in the right of the terminally ill to die with dignity on their own terms.

As of this writing, Oregon, Washington, and Montana are the only states in the U.S. where physician-assisted suicide is legally available for terminally ill patients. It is also legal in a small handful of European nations. Everywhere else, the terminally ill are forced to endure sometimes horrific pain at the end of life, or end their misery with a plastic bag, a noose, or other undignified means. And those sad, desperate acts will continue as long as so-called “pro-life” factions keep fighting attempts to widen the acceptance of physician-assisted suicide and provide more people with the power to choose a good death over a horrible, slow, painful one.

What it boils down to is this: While life is precious and should not be thrown away lightly, modern medical science cannot yet provide adequate pain control for all dying patients, even in the best hospices.

While physicians are sworn to do no harm, is it not harmful to force a dying patient to suffer a slow, lingering death against his or her will, perhaps kept alive artificially with respirators and feeding tubes?

When a pet becomes ill to the point where it is near death and suffering uncontrollably, a veterinarian will not think twice before recommending that the pet be euthanized, to put the animal out of its misery.

So why do we treat our dying pets with more mercy than we treat our dying people?

I have to agree with Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society (now known as Compassion and Choices) and author of the controversial suicide manual Final Exit, who said: “Surely the right to die in a manner and at a time one’s own choosing is the ultimate civil liberty.”

And the key word here is choosing.

No death panels, just respect for the rational end-of-life wishes of the suffering.

No death panels, just compassion.

No death panels, just a choice.