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"Most gays are perverts," Belgian cardinal says Reuters Global News from the Web, January 21, 2004 BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Belgian cardinal said on Wednesday only five to 10 percent of lesbians and gays were actually gay and the rest were "sexual perverts". "I am willing to write in my own blood that of all those who call themselves lesbian or gay, a maximum of five to 10 percent are effectively lesbian or gay," Cardinal Gustaaf Joos, 80, told the Belgian weekly P-Magazine in an interview. "All the rest are just sexual perverts," said Joos, who is also a parish priest in the small Belgian town of Landskouter. "I demand you write that down," said Joos, who was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul late last year. "I don't care if they all come protesting at my door. I won't open the door." The Belgian Catholic church reacted to the interview by saying Joos was speaking in a private capacity. "It concerns a private view of cardinal Joos who doesn't speak on behalf of the Belgian bishops. He is not a member of the Belgian conference of bishops," spokesman Toon Osaer told VRT television, adding that it did not have the power to reprimand Joos. "Cardinal Joos directly falls under the jurisdiction of the pope in Rome," he said. Joos later told the same television station: "I'm just speaking out on what thousands of people are thinking but never get a chance to say." The predominantly Roman Catholic country of 10 million legalised gay marriages last year and is now moving closer to granting same-sex couples the right to adopt children. "Real homosexuals don't wander in the streets in colourful suits. Those are people who have a serious problem and have to live with that. And if they make a mistake they will be forgiven. We have to help these people and not judge them," Joos said in the interview. "The Church...rejects homosexuality, not the homosexual," Joos said. The Vatican has condemned same-sex unions as deviant and a threat to society at the same time that Europe and North America are moving towards legalising gay marriage. (Emphasis Added)
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