On Tuesday Pope Benedict compared Catholic opposition to gay marriage with concern about the environment, suggesting that laws undermining "the differences between the sexes" were threats to creation.

"Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience," he said. "One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes."

Apparently not realizing the Pope was alluding to gay marriage, the Italian government immediately ruled that men are no longer allowed to touch appliances, and women who wear pants should be shot.