Apparently I'm a leper now #lgbt

According to a conference that is being held in Orangefield Presbyterian Church I am a leper. The conference in organised by Core Issues who encourage reparative therapy for LGBT people who struggle to reconcile this with their faith.

The opening quote inside their literature make horrific reading (emphasis mine)

Failure to live out the reality of Jesus Christ’s presence in the common life of the church with those who struggle with same sex sins is a disease of epic proportions, a malignancy that
spreads throughout the Body and resurfaces as the Evangelical, Biblebelieving church attempts to deal with other sin issues. This failure is merely symptomatic of other deeper issues within the body, diseases that are not so easily identifiable nor that carry the same stigma or bigotry: spiritual complacency and ambivalence, hypocrisy, unaccountability and Biblical ignorance.”
- The Lepers Among Us

Of course where does that stigma and bigotry come from?

This has spurred me to write the following email to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Board of Social Witness and the congregations involved.

As someone baptised into Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bangor where I currently attend I am appalled to learn that the Rev Jim Reynolds is holding a conference entitled:

The Leper Among Us: Homosexuality and Life in the Church 

on the premises of Orangefield Presbyterian Church and on the Sunday shall be preaching at Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church.

The title of such a conference victimises and diminishes LGBT people which seems to be in direct contravention of recommendation 2 of the Board of Social Witness's Social Issues and Resources Panel Pastoral guidelines Homosexuality (March 2007).

Fails to "encourage our congregations to ’Create an environment of love, acceptance, patience, forgiveness and grace." as in recommendation 4 as above.

In creates the feeling of unsafe spaces in these two congregations and potentially others in the PCI, when recommendation 5 called to create a safe space, which I believe has not yet been achieved.

The controversial methods espoused by Rev. Reynolds are things that I would never expect to a member congregation of the General Assembly to host. As one of the LGBT attendees of the PCI (currently not a member due to your guideline) maybe I am a Leper in your eyes. I am already excluded from full membership. Maybe you would want me to sound a bell and stay outside the building on a Sunday. Maybe you'd like me to get an extra long lead so that I can play my bass guitar to help lead worship so as I do not come inside the precincts of the building.
Of maybe both the congregations involved will take the time available to live up to recommendation 3 in the pastoral guidelines:

encourage repentance for the occasions when persons with same sex attractions have been treated in ways severely lacking in grace within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and that the Assembly encourage an attitude of grace and mercy to be actively shown to all who struggle with different aspects of their sexuality.

I'm hurt by the failure of adherence to your own pastoral guidelines. I'm hurt by the lack of action on those recommendations from 2007. I'm hurt by the treatment of LGBT members by the congregations to be associated with someone who names them lepers within. These actions are lacking in the grace that the Board of Social Witness recommendations sought to deal with. 

Seeking the non-existant gay on/off swtich : today in Belfast

Today is one of those strange days. As soon as this story broke on the BBC website I would have expected a DM from Andrew Reeves either asking me for details, or telling me he was going to blog about it, or already had and would I like to comment.

His blog post would of course taken the line that no religion had any place to say anything about being LGBT, my riposte would of course have mentioned that the church needs to recognise the LGBT members within their midst that have not turned their back on them despite the church turning their backs, all too often, on them.

You see today in Northern Ireland one of Iris Robinson's 'christian' psychologist friends David Pickup is in Belfast to promote reparative therapy. The group holding a one day seminar up at Belvoir Parish Church, CORE supports "men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference and expression". They see having same sex attractions as an illness that is there to be cured. They see it is being a lesser option that being straight. They see it as something that through therapy can be suppressed and heterosexual lifestyle and feelings comes into its place. They say there is some sort of switch that can turn off the same sex attractions that LGB people feel. There isn't, I've tried TWICE. They say they love LGBT people, but pressure them into feeling lesser, to feeling that they are constantly failing, from a holier than though, judgemental stand point.

Forgive me if I am wrong or stepping out of line here but part of the bible tells me I should not bear false witness. You may have heard of that bit, it is the ten commandments. Now the fact is that I am attracted to other men. That does not necessarily more that one at the same time and be promiscuous. I can be so in love that I only have eyes for one man at a time, just as a heterosexual can only have eyes for one person of the opposite gender.

I don't have issues with that. At fifteen and sixteen because that is what the church seemed to imply, or on the rare occasions it was talked about tell me straight. My church now does have some pastoral guidelines on people with same sex attractiveness. It does come over 20 years after I needed pastoral guidance, although I doubt under the guidelines at present I would seek such pastoral care at that age. My profession of faith, enough to become a member of the church, is not sufficient, now is my preparedness to donate to church funds all because of my sexuality and more to the point my not wishing to hide it under a bushel: not that I'm shouting it from the rooftops either in the confines of any Presbyterian meeting house.

See I'm a Liberal Democrat, as such I don't think anyone should be enslaved, by poverty, ignorance or conformity. The people at the seminar in Belfast today are ignorant of the harm that reparitive therapy can do and they are trying to make people who are difference conform to a norm. They say willingly, but it is most often merely so that they fit in that they submit to this. There are people out there who are Christian, or of other faiths, and LGBT.

There is a protest up at Belvoir Parish Church handing out leaflets to highlight the harm that this approach to LGBT people within the church can cause, but because of all manner of commitments I am unable to attend in person. There is a growing open LGBT community in Northern Ireland, because of our religious nature a lot of that community is of faith and have struggled, or are struggling, with that dual persona themselves. It is not an issue they have with themselves, but an issue of how the church and fellow Christians perceive them.

Thankfully according to the BBC only 15 people were inside this morning attending the seminar.

Read Also 

• Andrew Mc Farland on Faith and Pride 
• Ed Simpson on Looking for a Better Way
• Jeffry G. Ford Reparative Therapy: A Pseudo Science

Update

Just seen  David Pickup on the lunchtime news. He says that gay is a lifestyle choice and wasn't around 100 years ago. Maybe we should tell to Edward Carson QC, whose statue is outside Parliament Buildings, whose judgement in favour of the Marquess of Queensbury in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde in 1895, led to a warrent being issued for his arrest for gross indecency* upon leaving that trial. The eventual 2 years sentance of hard labour obviously mistaken as there was no such thing as gay 100, never mind 116 years ago.

* Homosexual acts not amounting to buggery.

Reparative Therapy not needed, it merely leads to conflict

Healing a non-Disease

Ed Simpson has written an excellent post about the upcoming 'Interrogating the Pejorative - Considering Therapeutic Approaches and Contexts for those Conflicted in Sexual Identity'. I could save all those wanting to waste time and money on attending such an event with this simple summation.

Those conflicted in sexual identity are conflicted because other's say it isn't normal, that they need to be cured of it, that they can't find love or be loved because they have same sex attraction.

In other words lay off trying to cure us of something that isn't a disease. If that were to happen gay men, lesbians and bisexuals would still go to therapy, just as those who are straight do with real concerns. As is it many young people have to go through the growing up themselves, coming to terms with themselves first, then having to stand up to others. That's why when people like Gwyneth Paltrow want to raise the issue of same-sex attractiveness with their children when it is right to do so it should be applauded, not like the Daily Fail did condemn it.

That's why when in the Doctor Who story A good man goes to war with the thin, fat, gay, married, Anglican marines came up, and my elder nephew asked about that there was a quick glance between me and his parents. Was it time for them to explain that to him? After all best do it now before their uncle finds someone special and decides to settle down with him.

As with Apple Martin the daughter of Paltrow and her Coldplay frontman husband Chris Martin, each child has their own life experiences, when they first encounter the LGBT world is not necessarily something within the parents control. Somebody's mother or father from school may well identify as LGBT. It is how parents, teachers and leaders that come into that child and every child that leads to whether there is conflict or not in that child's upbringing. It may be that the child themself are identifying that in themselves. This first approach to the issue could be the start of the conflict that someone personally goes through, it has nothing to do their actual sexual identity but how it is perceived from others.

There is to be a presence outside the event on Tuesday here in Belfast. Trying to provide evidence of the additional trauma and conflict that reparative therapy can lead to. Some in church circles will be seething with outrage that LGBT people and their friends, will be outside a church building to protest. But then how many of them are also going to turn up to protest at the various pride events, or try and discourage or persuade people away from the LGBT venues on a regular basis.