Ricky Martin, the Grammy-award winning iconic pop singer who will star in the Broadway revival of “Evita” next year, and who just celebrated his first anniversary as an out gay man, has been told by a Catholic Cardinal to not promote homosexuality. “To foster homosexuality or sexual promiscuity among our young people is certainly immoral, no matter where it comes from,” said Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Martin’s birthplace.
“I have personally admired Ricky for the great artistic gifts with which God has endowed him,” the Cardinal, according to a translation said, further imploring Martin to, “please, for the sake of their children, for whom I imagine [you] want the best, try to set an example to our young people of the great values we all share, besides sex.”
Ricky Martin has twin sons, Matteo and Valentino, who were born in 2008. Last month Martin received GLAAD’s highest honor, the 2011 Vito Russo Award, for increasing awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.
The 88-year old Cardinal Martinez, profiled in the Spanish-language newspaper Primera Hora, claimed the Catholic Church “does not reject the homosexual person, but rather the actions and conduct that go against morality.”
(Interesting that God, according to Martinez, gave Martin “great artistic gifts,” and God, the Cardinal must assume, also made Martin homosexual. How is it Martinez does not want Martin to embrace his homosexuality?)
The Cardinal is not the only religious figure to take Martin on. Just a few weeks ago, self-proclaimed apostol and Megachurch Pastor Wanda Rolón, who compared homosexuals to “a drug addict, an alcoholic,” claimed Martin’s new music tour, “Musica+Alma+Sexo,” would lead Puerto Ricans to hell.
“This weekend Puerto Rico receives a man saved and brought from hell to the light, Nicky Cruz, while another one pretends to drag us all to hell,” Rolón wrote in a message to her fans on Facebook, adding, “RM [Ricky Martin] has been proclaimed its ambassador (hell’s, that is). Puerto Rico wake up, everyone praise the lord. This is the island of the Lamb. Alert God.”
The message was later deleted thanks to many angry Facebook fans.
Ricky Martin, who has been working with UNICEF since 1984, was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2003, and has received many awards for his humanitarian work. Martin created the Ricky Martin Foundation which “advocates for the well-being of children in critical areas such as social justice, education and health. His foundation’s principal project, People for Children, seeks to eliminate child trafficking through education,” according to UNICEF.
Last fall, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Martin said, “I’m in a relationship and it feels amazing!”
On March 29, 2010, the 39-year old former Menudo star who enjoys a continuing and quite successful career, and has sold over 65 million albums, told the world, “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.â€
(Image: Ricky Martin speaks at the 2010 HRC National Dinner)