Unjustified conservative fear of sexual extremes

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church mega-church, the man who delivered the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration, insisted on the Larry King television programme in the USA last week that he isn’t against gays or same sex marriage. He recanted his earlier support for Proposition 8 and claimed that such support had never even been offered, despite the evidence on his own website.

Conservative evangelicals aren’t happy about this. Neither are they happy about the failure of “orthodox” evangelical Christian leaders and bishops in the UK to speak out in opposing the progress to equality for LGBT people.

Posting on Anglican Mainstream, Lisa Nolland claims that gay marriage “is not the last gasp but the first new breath of freedom and ‘coming out’ for a whole host of other sexual ‘lifestyles’ which claim the same authenticity and legitimacy as gays and lesbians.” This means, among other things, the rights of bisexual triads and poly (3,4, 5 or more) sexual unions to be ’married’ as well. Lisa is well researched. She references the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom in the USA as a group arguing for the equality of more extreme expressions of human sexuality.

Conservatives fear many things at the moment.

They fear unbridled sexual licence, random and rampant promiscuity, the breakdown of family and marriage and the loss of Christian influence in society.

They are afraid that radical change on an enormous scale is taking place in British society which has “massive implications” for a particular group of Christians, those conservatives who believe that recent legislation forces them to “collude, shut up, get fired, fined, sued or get out”.

They fear that conservative Christian teachers, doctors, nurses, judges and social workers are forced to acknowledge and promote alternative sexual lifestyles.

They fear that all debate and dissent about sexual issues is being silenced because people are fearful of being accused of hate speech and homophobia.

They fear that society says that all sexual lifestyles are equal and must be affirmed and protected culturally, politically and legally, enveloping all present institutions.

They fear this culture will soon be imposed on the church. ’Anti-gay’ churches will be viewed in the same light as society now sees white supremacist ones.

This is an extreme reaction. Conservative Christians want the right to preach and teach that homosexuality is sinful – in the workplace. They want the freedom to express prejudices which are no longer acceptable in British society.

They use dishonest tactics in making their case. They describe extremes of sexual licence and behaviour and imply by association that LGBT Christians and groups like Changing Attitude have a hidden agenda. They imply that we will ultimately seek to abandon the Christian ethical position.

Changing Attitude is a Christian group embodying Christian ethical sexual values. There are appropriate and inappropriate forms of sexual encounter - fidelity and love are the hallmarks. We assume that conservative evangelicals agree with us.

Tony Blair in Attitude on changing attitudes

Tony Blair has been interviewed by Johann Hari in the latest issue of Attitude magazine. Blair talks about political change during his premiership and the changes in religious thinking that he can see happening now. It’s good news for the work of Changing Attitude and salutary news for Christian conservatives. Attitudes change when you engage and truly listen to people – that’s why conservatives resist the Listening Process. Generational change occurs, change occurs, full stop, and can’t be stopped. In a nutshell, this is what Blair said:

Public attitudes have changed fundamentally

Civil partnerships gave people a sense of liberation from prejudice. So many people’s lives have been affected by CPs. Ken Livingstone insisted on the gay agenda when it was unpopular. He taught that conventional wisdom is not necessarily wise: it can be a form of conservatism that hides behind consensus.

Political Correctness

Opposition to prejudice is pilloried as political correctness. Political correctness was used to demonise the move towards equality. Equality isn’t political correctness: it’s justice. Tory politicians said that someone can be persuaded to be gay in the Section 28 debates, I said, “I’m not gay, and there is nothing that would persuade me to be gay –it’s the same for gay people.”

Generational change

A generational shift is happening in evangelical groups in the US. The older generation still quote parts of the Bible. The younger generation of evangelicals are increasingly no longer anti-gay.

Change by engagement

You can change people’s minds by engaging with them. Change comes through the process of engagement. People’s attitudes open up to the possibility of change and reconsideration.

Doctrine and practice

The essential values of faith need to be extracted from a vast accumulation of doctrine and practice. Many people’s religious faith is less to do with doctrine and practice and more to do with love of God and love of your neighbour.

Attitudes get mixed up with doctrine in the institutions of organised religion. It can be hard for religious institutions to break with the past. Can we contemplate a process of modernisation where attitudes towards the word of God change over time?

Religious people need to read texts less literally and more metaphorically. They need to treat religious thought and texts as capable of evolution over time. They need to understand the context and the society in which they were written. Jesus changed the traditional way that people thought. The process of evolution and change carries on the whole time.

Religion and reason

Pitting religion against reason is the single most dangerous thing you can do. If you force people to choose between religious faith and reason, they will choose reason.

Attitudes and thinking evolve over time. Religious leaders fear that if you concede ground on this issue change will be unstoppable. We need an attitude of mind where rethinking and the concept of evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline with which we approach our faith.

In an average congregation people are surprisingly liberal-minded. You find that their faith is not to be found in entrenched attitudes. Ask “what makes you religious?” and “what does your faith mean to you?” and they will answer “compassion, solidarity, relieving suffering”, not “it’s to do with believing homosexuality is wrong”.

Rochester – the traditionalist schism fizzles out?

George Pitcher writing in the Telegraph says Michael Nazir-Ali's departure is a totemic event that signals the end of Anglicanism's damaging schism. That’s a pretty bold claim to make. Is it true?

Pitcher says bishop Michael’s departure is emblematic of the decline of the Global South conservative political force in Anglicanism which threatened to tear the Communion apart. Last year they dreamed of overthrowing the authority of Canterbury in favour of an African-led Communion. Michael Nazir-Ali, pitched his tent with the African rebels but now finds that army dispersed and demoralized. How quickly, says Pitcher, has the optimism of last year's rebel schismatics turned to dust. Then there was talk of an end to neo-colonialist rule in the Anglican Church, with a new biblical hegemony that would isolate homosexual bishops and build a new Communion out of Africa.

The bishops, including Dr Nazir-Ali, who boycotted the Lambeth Conference at Canterbury last summer expected the old order to fall, but at the Anglican Primates' meeting in Alexandria, not one primate was absent for doctrinal reasons. The Archbishops of Uganda and Nigeria were present. Type Gafcon into Google News, says George, and practically the only items are from Virtue Online, and David Virtue is interested solely in proclaiming the destruction of the Communion, as I know only too well.

My suspicions about the motives of the six English bishops (Blackburn, Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Rochester and Winchester) who wrote in support of the Bishop of Pittsburgh in September 2008 have not yet been totally allayed.

Is the schism over? Are we now entering a period in which skirmishes continue but the Primates and Provinces of the Communion reluctantly engage with the listening process? I have always predicted this as the most likely outcome, and events such as the recent hearing on the Same Gender Marriage (Prohibition) Bill in Abuja, Nigeria, and the positive effect of equality legislation in the UK confirm my predictions.

The hearings may look like a success for the huge forces arrayed against homosexuality in Nigeria. But one side-effect of introducing the bill and pushing it through the legislative process is that Nigerians are being made more and more conscious of the fact of homosexuality and the presence of LGBT people in their country and their churches.

There has been a second side effect. LGBT Nigerians are far more aware of themselves and the place that they are being denied in society and their confidence and determination is being energised.

Raising awareness and consciousness in the media is the next step on the road to a change of attitude in Nigerian society. They are where we were in the 50s and 60s, when the Church of England first produced a report and gay activism became a public force.

Whether or not bishop Michael becomes active in Gafcon after leaving Rochester won’t ultimately matter. The Communion will return to engaging with homosexuality and the real lives of LGBT people.

Conservatives are astonishing!

The Christian Institute reports Professor Michael King’s research findings as “A significant minority of mental health professionals are attempting to help clients with unwanted homosexual desires.” The Institute’s report accurately says: “There is very little evidence to show that attempting to treat a person’s homosexual feelings is effective and in fact it can actually be harmful.”

That doesn’t fit with conservative needs, however, so instead of continuing to report Michael King’s research, they report work undertaken at Columbia University in 2001 by Professor Robert Spitzer. This shows that homosexuals could become “predominantly” heterosexual through psychotherapy. “Predominantly” heterosexual – what does that mean?

Then they turn to James Parker for support. He has been a client of a Dr Paul Miller who was referred to by Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson last year when she said therapy can help homosexuals change to become heterosexual.

Homosexuals are homosexual. They can no more change to become heterosexual than a heterosexual can change to become homosexual.

So, 41 year old James Parker praises Dr Miller and says he thinks everyone who wishes to avail of his services should have the freedom to do so. I wouldn’t dispute that. I’d just disagree that Dr Miller is a reputable therapist working with a model accepted by other therapists.

Mr Parker reveals that he: “came out as a young gay man at 17 in London without any hostility from anyone and was very active in the gay lifestyle.” Later he met a group of Christians. “I learnt it was possible to have friendships which were non-sexual”. “I saw this new community which was centred around other people and I noticed the community I was in was narcissistic and self-centred in comparison. I began to question my identity - was it simply my sexual orientation? “Through therapy I began to deal with some traumatic incidents in my past where I had been raped and sexually abused. I had found sexual abuse gave me human attention but in a perverted sort of way.” Mr Parker has now been happily married for two years. “I don’t have homosexual feelings any longer,” he said.

Mr Parker’s experience is extremely atypical. He was raped and sexually abused. His earlier life was perverted and abusive. He was in a narcissistic community.

Conservative evangelicals often produce this kind of evidence, as if it proves that this is typical gay experience. It isn’t. It certainly isn’t true to the experience of the majority of Changing Attitude supporters or of lesbian and gay Christians I know well.

Then he met a group of Christians who were person centred and as a result of that began to question his identity. He no longer has homosexual feelings. Perhaps he never was homosexual. Who knows?

His own report and the intervention by Dr Miller are not going to reveal whether he was homosexual and still is but has successfully repressed his same-sex desires or has always been heterosexual but for complex reasons indulged in a very unhealthy environment when he was younger.

Christian therapists still damage their gay patients

Two months ago I met Michael King of University College London for the first time and was impressed by the authority of the research he has carried out.

He has just published research in the BMC Psychiatry journal which attracted interest yesterday – Premier Radio recorded a quick interview with me. The study surveyed 1,400 medical professionals. It revealed that a sixth of registered British therapists and psychiatrists have attempted to "cure" patients of homosexuality. It also found that there is very little evidence that therapy can really help change whether a person is lesbian, gay or bisexual.

I trained as a psychotherapist, and what the 16% are doing is in my view unprofessional and abusive. A therapist should never have an agenda for the client nor allow him or herself to collude with a client’s perspective simply because it coincides with their own.

Reparative therapy is based on the belief that to be gay or lesbian is wrong, or to act on emotional and sexual desires is in all circumstances wrong for a Christian. If a client feels guilty about being gay or having had sexual encounters with another man, then it is the client’s feelings and experience and reactions that are the content of the therapy, not helping them suppress or deny their own sexuality. Reparative therapy, or colluding with a client who has internalized guilt about homosexuality from church teaching, is always wrong and can be abuse and very damaging to a person’s well being and healing.

As Professor King says, there is nothing whatever pathological about being lesbian or gay. Christians are wrong if they believe that to be homosexual is contrary to the will of God, full stop.

Professor King’s work is of great help to the work and message of Changing Attitude and contributes to the resources available to us in Changing Church attitudes.

Davis Mac-Iyalla, the Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, has published his thoughts about Archbishop Peter Akinola’s Pastoral Letter in an article on Comment is free: No change in attitudes

One of the two Changing Attitude Nigeria group leaders who was present at the public hearing in Abuja on the Same Gender Marriage (Prohibition) Act has posted his thoughts on Archbishop Akinola’s letter to the group. He writes:

“It still surprises me that people refuse to see the truth when they can now see very clearly the presence of LGBT people in Nigeria. Why don’t people ask themselves why there are gay people in our society? Don’t they understand that there are some things about a person, like our sexuality, that cannot be changed?

“Where has the large sum of money come from that Archbishop Akinola refers to? Changing Attitude is a way of changing people's thinking about us lesbian and gay people and not a way of making money. We don’t need money to make is what we already are.

“They should understand that we are not possessed people as they have labelled us. Whatever deliverance ministry or teaching anyone thinks they can use to change our personality will be a waste of time. Being lesbian or gay has to do with God's creation and is natural. It is only possessed people that need and seek deliverance, not gay people. We are not possessed, we are Godly people.

“I was at the hearing where there was much talk about gays being evil, demonic and ungodly. It is because of the way people talk about us that some gay people see themselves as evil and sinners. As a result they continue to fight within themselves and cannot accept who they are.

“Now the Church of Nigeria is trying to make it look as if homosexuality is a western thing and that we are influenced by money sent from the west to bribe and corrupt us. I can never be influenced over my sexuality, not by anything in this world. We gay Nigerians can never be lured into being something that we already are by God's creation. I am sure the leaders already know the truth. We are here to let them know the truth that they have refused to accept.

“I also want to say to those who are not gay, meet us and get to know us and you will see that we are normal humans just like you. You must learn to accept us as we are. That is God’s wish for us all.”

Davis and Uche both issue a challenge to Archbishop Akinola in fulfilment of his commitment to listen to homosexual people – meet us and listen to us. This challenge will never go away because LGBT people will always be present in Nigerian society and churches. One day, the Archbishop or one of his successors will fulfil the pledge to listen.

Can gay couples share a room in a Christian B&B?

The new laws on sexual discrimination continue to make their presence felt. What do you do if you’re a gay couple on holiday looking for a B&B? I’ve done it – ring the bell, ask for a double room, wonder what kind of reaction we will get. A couple holidaying in Cornwall who had pre-booked got the ‘Christian’ response.

Martin Hall and Steven Paddy, a gay couple who are civil partners booked a double room in the Chymorvah Private Hotel in Marazion near Penzance in November 2008. When they arrived they were told that the hotel could not honour the booking. Peter and Hazelmary Bull, the owners, both Christians, refused to allow them to stay in a room together. (Pictures of the double rooms gay couples are not allowed to sleep in accompany this blog.)

Martin and Steven have launched a county court claim seeking up to £5,000 in damages alleging "direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation".

The owners defended the ban saying that they have always barred unmarried couples, whether gay or straight, from sharing a bed. Mrs Bull said: "In 26 years we have never really had a problem with it. I have found people to be very good and understanding. They realise that they are pursuing one lifestyle while we are pursuing another. "I suppose we knew there would be problems with the new law, but I can't change my beliefs and faith because of that."

Well, times and the law have changed. You could do things in business 26 years ago that you can’t do now, and for lesbian and gay couples, that’s real progress.

The hotel's website states: “Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard for marriage (being the union of one man to one woman for life to the exclusion of all others). Therefore, although we extend to all a warm welcome to our home, our double bedded accommodation is not available to unmarried couples – Thank you.”

Mr and Mrs Bull think they are entitled to police the morality of other people. If they had couples to stay in their private house, friends who they thought shouldn’t share a bed, then their might be an uncomfortable conversation and the couple might agree and sleep separately or walk out in a huff. But the Bulls are running a business and the laws of this country apply to them.

The Bulls' solicitor, Tom Ellis, has said he will argue that the Equality Act infringes their human rights as Christians. He said: "Under the European Convention on Human Rights, people are able to hold a religious belief and manifest it in the way they act."

The increasingly familiar argument appears, that it is Christians who need protection of their human rights to enable them to hold their religious beliefs and act accordingly. No-one is preventing them from doing that, only of not infringing inappropriately on the lives of others.

All this will change when the churches let go of their sexual prejudices against LGBT people. Christians do not have a human right to be prejudiced.