Bisexuality and a lesson for the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland

Speaking in The Newsletter today the public policy officer of the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland (EANI) David Smyth said:

"While Saturday was a day of celebration for some, it was a concerning day for many. 

"Christian opposition to same-sex marriage was never just about protecting churches. It's always been about the wellbeing and welfare of family and communities for generations to come.

"The whole idea of "equal" marriage comes from a premise that many outrightly reject, that marriage is an inequality to be corrected.

"This change in marriage law was argued on the grounds of equality and love.

"What about 'equal marriage' for the bisexual person who is 'banned' from being able to marry both their male and female partners?"

First a definitions for Mr Smyth:

bisexual (baɪˈsɛksjʊəl) adj

1. sexually attracted by both men and women from freedictionary.com

Note this is merely the attraction to both sexes. Under no definition of bisexuality will you find that that attraction is to two people of opposite genders simultaneously or concurrently. Bi-sexual people have the same propensity to monogamous relationships as any other individual, indeed 89% of those in a ten year study in 1997¹ found that to be the case. Considering the number of unfaithful straight people who are cheating on their wives and partners this is probably about the norm, but something that the EANI would probably want to sweep under the carpet.

Another fact about the new marriages that came into law in England and Wales at the weekend is that there is still the point in the ceremony where anybody present knows of any lawful impediment why they cannot be married. This includes an non-dissolved marriage or civil partnership to another individual (even the one that is standing opposite them). So the current law does not allow for anybody to be married to two partners of different genders, they would be subject to the same bigamy laws that apply to heterosexual couples.

What Mr Smith appears to be worried about is polyamorous relationships. Definition time:

polyamory (pä-lē-ˈa-mə-rē) noun

the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time  from Merriam-Webster.com

You will notice here there is no reference to sexual orientation of the couples involved. However, there are plenty of examples of such relationships in the bible all of which are one man with two or more wives and/or concubines.

However, the one thing that does strike me from this statement is actually the line which says, "it's always been about the wellbeing and welfare of family and communities for generations to come."

Now I certainly have the support of my family, whether as the gay son, brother, cousin or uncle. However, my well being is often under threat from those in the church who condemn me or them for giving that support to me. The same applies to the other LGBT people I know who have grown up and exist in or on the periphery of church life.

Now by outrightly rejecting the idea of marriage equality as the EANI are they also condemning those in the church who are LGBT to a lifetime of singleness without love, or into a marriage with someone they are not attracted to (damaging to two people long term and their family). In doing this are they also condemning love that those individuals may find how can this be good for the wellbeing and welfare of those in families that they claim they want to help.

I have been to a number of funerals in churches in recent years where one of the children of the family and their same-sex partner have been present. Some of these churches are members of the EANI, they are there to offer support to the whole family even the gay child and their partner (whether in a civil partnership or not). This is looking after those LGBT church members and those on the fringe support for their well being and welfare, yet somehow the church wants to continue to fail them day to day on the matter of love.

However, single people in the church after they reach a certain age are always getting asked by the church who and when they are going to marry. There is pressure from well meaning church members to pair up to both spinsters and bachelors at least while they are still in their 30s and 40s to pair up. Yet when you are gay and get asked are you not married yet, the fact that the true reason is because you're not allowed to be married here, is liable to draw a mixture of reactions.

I say mixture as unlike what Mr Smyth ascertains there is not outright condemnation of marriage equality. There are people within the churches even here in Northern Ireland who feel for those LGBT people that they know in person and their inability to be treated equally in this regard.

So while it may be a concerning day for some when equal marriage was brought in throughout England and Wales:

1. It is not condemned outrightly by all in Northern Irish churches
2. Polygamous marriage is a separate issue and not solely a subject for bisexuality so should not be used as an argument against for monogamous same-sex marriages.
3. If you are really concerned about families and their members wellbeing and welfare support equal love and let them marry the person they love, not condemn them to hatred and denial of support.

¹Spalding, L. R., & Peplau, L. A. (1997). The unfaithful lover: heterosexuals’ perceptions of bisexuals and their relationships. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 611-625.

Stonewall try and fail to be inclusive

Today Stonewall launch their campaign to tackle homophobia in work. There are four poster designs, though by looking at their website you would think that there are only three. Two are all male with the headline "One is Gay". There is a lesbian version but this morning it took many LGBT activists some time to locate it.


There is one woman that Stonewall are happy to promote on their posters about this campaign. She is a police officer who appears with a male colleague under the title "One is bisexual". So the women may actually be the straight one on that poster, after all we are assuming that the other one is, unless she is a lesbian and her male colleague is the bisexual.

However, what many campaigners including myself picked up on the bisexual poster is that apart from the title you would not know that Britain's "self-proclaimed" leader in the LGB rights

The text underneath all four designs is the same.

At Stonewall we've campaigned for 25 years for equality. We've had major successes with legaslising same-sex marriage, repealing section 28 and lifting the ban on gay people serving in the military. But 99% of young gay people still regularly hear homophobic language in school, 100 homophobic hate crimes are reported to the police every week and 2.4 million people have witnessed homophobic bullying at work in the past 5 years.

Lots done. Lots to do.

Yes even when  Stonewall try and be inclusive in their poster campaign they fail within the text. They focus only on the G, hide away the L, fail to recognise the different problems faced by the B, and as for the T as usual with Stonewall they don't get a look in.

They are also taking credit for same-sex marriage, which they were opposed to in 2010 even as the Liberal Democrats passed as Federal Policy in support of it.

There are many harping away about how fantastic this campaign is. Sadly it is more fan'as'ic and fails from its outset to be a diversity inclusive at it appears on a quick scan of the posters.

While we do need to end homophobic bullying, and biphobic, we also need to address transphobic. The Stonewall riots saw the transexuals stand alongside the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals in countering the police brutality. But Stonewall UK (itself a misnomer due its lack of action on Northern Ireland) fail to live up to the name it bears by constantly getting the full range of those who made at stand at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village.

Looks like those of us who get the full spectrum of sexuality and identity will once again had to pick up the pieces that the UK most high profile organisation that many few as standing for LGBT rights fails to pick up and run with.

Some thoughts on the Tom Daley reactions

So Tom Daley has admitted that he is dating a man. He has also said that he still fancies girls.


However, as a gay sportsman I cannot believe some of the comments I have seen online since Tom courageously told us this very personal news.

So some of the negative comments that are out there.

How will this affect him in the locker room? Hardly at all, there is already an openly gay man in international diving the 2008 Olympic Champion, Matthew Mitcham, so in his sport at the top level the rest of the guys already have no issue. Indeed this is an issue I addressed some 3 years ago.

Will it affect his training? No, well at least not in an adverse way. Being in a stable relationship, if that is what this is, is actually likely to enhance his training as he has some that will enable him to relax in his down time. Also the fact this he is being honest about himself means he doesn't have to worry about people disclosing details of his personal life before he is able to. So that is possibly one thing that he is now able to put behind him.

Why is he not naming his boyfriend is he ashamed of him? Actually no. As Tom says he likes to have some personal life. Just because someone is in the public eye doesn't mean that their partner either wants to be, or desires to be. Tom is the one in this relationship who is in the public eye, so we should respect the privacy that he is wanting for his partner. On the news earlier Tom was quite rightly called the pop star of British sport, he was on posters for London 2012 in nothing more than his speedo. Anyone either male or female would take some time adjusting to being the partner of that sort of public figure.

Tom Daley is gay! Actually no he hasn't said that. He said above that he still fancies girls but that the person he is currently dating is another man. Tom himself hasn't put a label on his sexuality and for all the bisexuals out there, as Tom says, it shouldn't really matter. He is in love with someone and that is all that is important, the gender of the other person in his eyes is not significant. He says he couldn't be happier and all of us who have like him had to make some sort of announcement about our own sexuality not being heterosexual we are happy for him too. Tom doesn't want any label other than that he is in a relationship.

He's just greedy! I sadly have seen this biphopic comment from a number of gay men. Tom is not greedy he is in a relationship with one person. Even if he was poly that wouldn't make him greedy, he would only be providing the amount of love that he felt he could give and receive the amount he was able to. Thirteen years ago, after I had come out, I fell in love. The individual in question just happened to be female. So I can fully understand that Tom has fallen in love with the person, I can also understand that he is in a relationship and still fancy people of the opposite gender to that partner, I've been there and worn the t-shirt. My partner at the time did not feel insecure about that, but it allowed us to have a lot of honest conversations. Tom is in a monogamous relationship, he is therefore not greedy and gay men (as invariably it is they) who say this are being biphopic and should think about how excluded they feel at times.

As for the way Tom made the announcement it was through his own YouTube channel. It was a way he has spoken to his fans who have followed him for years. It was there that he told us about Splash, recently shared his first experience of an American Football game. In other words it was where like many YouTubers you consider your subscribers as friends. Which is why at the time of writing Tom's "coming out" vlog has over 40,000 likes and only 650 dislikes. People who support Tom don't care.

Bisexual visability day

Today is bisexual visability day. "Why do we need such a day/" you may ask, well too often the B is LGBT is an invisable part of the spectrum, yet I believe there are many shades of bi along that spectrum.

So have you ever wondered why you don't know more bisexuals around you? It is probably because they don't constantly have threesomes with one person of each gender but are probably in a monogamous relationship with someone either of the opposite of same gender. That is why they are not as visible as those who identify purely as straight or gay/lesbian.

That being said as I mentioned above there are various shades of bisexuality. I for example should probably identify as bi, my longest sexual relationship was with someone of the opposite gender. This occurred after I came out, lasted for over 5 years but is in a minority of one. Most of my sexual relationships/encounters have been with other men. Therefore for the sake of clarity I find it far easier to merely identify as gay, though this is only somewhere between 95% and 99.9% accurate.

The problem is that whenever someone who is bisexual and more equally homosexual and heterosexual a 3 on the Kinsey scale, their next partner could equally be of either gender. Depending how long the last relationship had been there will be people at work or socially around them who only know them as being attracted to one gender. This is something I experienced after that five year relationship, especially as I had traveled to Scotland early on in that relationship and had to establish new social circles.

Those who are more at the extremes of the Kinsey scale don't face the dilemmas that bisexuals face each time they change partner, potentially changing the sexuality of the partner as well. As well as all the usual pressures of going through the introduction of the new partner, there is all the added rigmarole of whichever way the partner swap appears to those who don't understand. Yes you can be attracted to someone merely because of who they are and not based on which sexual organs they happen to possess. Yes you can be sexually attracted and aroused by them. It is the visibility that is the issue, the world likes to think in terms of a plurality of sexual orientation, just as it likes to when it comes to gender. But neither are quite as straightforward as many would like to believe they can be. In truth there are varied shades of bi.

So there you have it for the sake of clarity on this bisexual visibility day I am stating that I am bi, though on the heavily gay end of the spectrum scoring a strong 5 on the Kinsey scale.

Cross Posting: Not a take over, we just want equality in deed and thought

Cross posting from LGBT Lib Dems NI

There is an article in today's Irish Independent on Sunday that you just wonder how on earth did it get published. It is almost as if the opinion writer Eamon Delaney was preparing a piece just in case David Norris instead of Michael D. Higgins had been elected President.

The first paragraph tells you enough that this isn't going to be an LGBT friendly piece:

"As the cliche goes, some of my best friends are gay. I used to live in a very gay area, the West Village in New York. Indeed, enjoying their nightlife and cultural atmosphere, I was even accused of 'trading' off the fun, with my copycat denim jacket and tartan shirt, while not actually joining them."

Eamon Delaney

Wow! Wearing denim jackets and denim shirts marks you out as gay in the USA. Has anyone told the rodeo stars or is Brokeback Mountain the norm rather than the exception? Talk about cliche, it isn't the first one that is offensive so much as the thought that the writer things he can become gay!

He carries on:

"I've recently begun to get impatient with the endless trumpeting of gay 'identity', and the growing appetite for more and more rights and privileges."

The rights we have been looking for are equal rights, the privileges are merely ones that heterosexual people take for granted. We'd love to expand the right of straight men like Eamon to buy cocktails if they want, but they already can. Or to go dancing with people of the same gender, but this is how the Jewish and Muslim community already dance at weddings.

Homosexuality was only decriminalised in the Republic in 1993 and in Northern Ireland in 1982. Anti-discrimination legislation only came into being in 2004 in the Republic, 2003 in the UK. Civil Partnerships only became legal earlier this year in the Republic but since 2004 in Northern Ireland.

Mr Delaney thinks that the LGBT community, actually his word is 'gays', "want to increasingly change mainstream culture to suit them". Now replace his word gay with blacks, or jews, or any other minority in the following paragraph and see how it reads:

"I'm not being reactionary and I'm all for gay rights and an end to prejudice and discrimination, and always have, but at this stage it seems as if the tables have turned and a minority community -- the gays -- want to increasingly change mainstream culture to suit them."

See the thing is while people, see a minority as not being part of the mainstream therein lies the problem. The fact that he sees that the LGBT community are not currently considered 'mainstream' means that there is still work to be done for equality to be a natural state. The recent reports into homophobic bullying, the recent comments from people in politics both north and south showing a them and us attitude to LGBT rights shows that things are not normal and the LGBT community is not see as those by many. The fact indeed that in his article Delaney uses the word 'gay' 25 times but LGBT a total of once and that in a derogatory manner as follows:

"And there are other things about the growing gay rights movement which make outsiders impatient and uneasy. Like, when did the gays and lesbian community become the 'LGBT', an acronym that also includes Bisexual and Transgender?

"Sorry, but this is broadening the boundaries in a way that makes many of us understandably sceptical.

"Bisexual? Isn't that reminiscent of the loose Seventies sexual experimentation? How many bisexuals are there? And will the plain people of Ireland be happy with legalising rights for, and spending money on, all of this?"

Actually no! What it shows by us including the bi-sexuals and transgender shows that we know there is a struggle to be recognised as being in a sexual minority. Those who are bi-sexual face all manner of issues, especially when changing the gender of their current partner, indeed when re-entering a mixed sex relationship it was something at the time I referred to as going back in. While we also recognise that not all transgendered individuals are Lesbian, Gay or Bi, we also realise that we don't want to leave them behind. They are an even small minority that the LGBs of this world, but if the LGB community lend their voice to the Ts so that their issues are taken seriously they will be more quickly.

There are many debates within the community about why the Ts are included and how some of the LGBs don't know enough about the issues that Ts face. But there are those who recognise that with the platform of one set the needs of the other can also be heard.

What I am sceptical about is just how LGBT friendly Mr Delaney really is. He clearly doesn't seem to have moved on from the time he enjoyed their company in 'the village' in New York all those years ago. He hasn't kept up with the issues faced by the LGBT community in the island of Ireland, something that is clear from the language and lack of understanding he shows through what he writes.

Forgive the cliche, but I think he once met someone who was gay and was quite a good laugh and a very supportive individual. But he has never talked to that one gay acquaintance, nor any other gay acquaintance in depth about the issues they face in their family, their workplace, the church, out on the streets of Dublin, Belfast or Ballywhatever in rural Ireland.

Read also 
Consider the Tea Cosy offers this thoughtful response
This defense of Delaney's supposedly non-existent bisexual and transgender communities
This answering merely the nine questions that Delaney asked
Autostraddle merely calls the article stupid
This open letter from the University Times to the editor of the Sunday Independent