Reading between the holy lines.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Unplugged

I'm not saying this in any kind of Mayflower snooty way, but I was recently jiggering with some of those nifty Mormon genealogy computer programs and have traced my lineage back through St. Bridget to Mary Magdalene and Jesus. I don't mean to brag, but it turns out I have Jesus's cheekbones. For a couple of extra dollars, I also found that my partner, a goddess of multitasking, is a direct descendant of the many armed and dangerous Hindu goddess, Kali.

Despite our luminous lineage, we would not be allowed to adopt a child in the Boston Archdiocese of Mormon Mitt's Massachusetts.

Apparently the 2003 Vatican statement that same-sex-adoptions are "gravely immoral" and "would actually mean doing violence to these children" was not trumped by the trumpeted 2006 papal encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" of "God Is Love." In his first official papal letter, after the semi-official papal post-it "Harrium Potterum Anti-Christum Est," Benedict XVI mused to the faithful on the glories of Clove.

The papal apologists at The New York Times expressed surprise in their article on the encyclical that the Pope did not denounce the abomination of gay marriage. They seemed unwilling to read between the holy lines when the Pope went on and on about the sacred rightness of the love between a man and a woman.

But P.P.S., papal post scriptum, what does His Papal Red Pumpness know of love? With those deep-set eyes, was he a big dater before seminary? Does he have a secret stash of Harlequin Romances? Is...