Friday 8 May 2009

Gay journalist attacked for writing the truth

Sometimes at Anglican events like this ACC meeting, I wonder if I occupy the same reality, the same world view and norms of public engagement as some of those around me. I’ve continued to think about the encounter I had yesterday with two other journalists following the morning press conference.

One of them started by challenging me that on Wednesday I had reported something that wasn’t true. I was told I had to retract what I had written and/or explain to an ignorant public that if I write that someone is gay, I don’t also imply that they are sexually active. As I wrote yesterday, such an idea wouldn’t occur to the ordinary people I encounter in my life. They are not thinking about the sexual activity of other human beings all the time.

But my overnight thoughts – why do two Christian journalists think they have the right to put me on the spot and demand that I retract something I wrote because, without having information I have, they can't believe it's accurate. Under intense pressure, I did stand my ground and repeated several times that what I wrote I know to be true.

The information seems to be intolerable for them. I’ve pondered on the reasons why. Is it because I know something they don’t – that certainly seems to be part of the intensity of their reaction. Here in Jamaica, they we calmly, assertively, confidently aggressive (if you understand what that feels like). I was asked the same question in Alexandria by one of the journalists, but there his anger was intense.

Do journalists put each other on the spot after press briefings normally? Perhaps that isn’t an important question. More important, I suspect, is their lack of imagination. Why it is so hard for them to imagine that there are lesbian and gay people at every level of the church, sitting in meetings with them, worshipping alongside them, at every level of the church’s hierarchy. It is somehow shocking in their hearts and minds when they become conscious of gay people in places they never expected to find us. It must seem to them like a plot or a cruel joke being played by God.

It isn’t, it’s just normal, ordinary. There are people throughout the church with a different sexual identity who are as faithfully, prayerfully, lovingly Christian as they imagine themselves to be.

Journalists become the story. This is something that annoys me, not because I am put in the frame of the story, but because it distracts from reporting, accurately, what is happening here at ACC-14. Another journalist who hasn’t even arrived has written that he prays he’s not flying to Jamaica to record the final heartbeats of the Anglican Church (sic). It is really a mess at the ACC 14 meeting in Jamaica right now, he says. No it isn’t, friends, it’s really good here and impressive work is being done. It’s just that they don’t understand homosexuality and can’t accept that after years of hiding, the LGBT people God calls to faith and ministry are slowly becoming visible.

Mind you, after days like yesterday, I could wish I had remained in the closet.

12 comments:

  1. "Mind you, after days like yesterday, I could wish I had remained in the closet."

    There's nothing shameful about being an open gay person, but I'm beginning to think I ought to become a closet Christian.

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  2. eBut my overnight thoughts – why do two Christian journalists think they have the right to put me on the spot and demand that I retract something I wrote because, without having information I have, they can't believe it's accurateIt isn't that they cannot believe it is accurate, it is, rather, that they do not WISH to believe the truth." So called Christian journalists have an agenda; therefore, they cannot accept any information that might counter that agenda.

    Hang in there; you do us all a great service my brother!

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  3. I do not know what happened the the post I just made; I didn't send it though that way. So here goes again.

    But my overnight thoughts – why do two Christian journalists think they have the right to put me on the spot and demand that I retract something I wrote because, without having information I have, they can't believe it's accurateIt isn't that they cannot believe it is accurate; rather, it is that they do not WISH to believe the truth. So-called Christian journalists have an agenda; therefore, they cannot accept any information that might counter that agenda.

    Hang in there; you do us all a great service, my brother.

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  4. I am so very glad you are there Colin. You are doing wonderful work. Thank you. Mark

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  5. Hang in there, Colin. We need you.
    Jim Naughton

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  6. keep right on, Colin. It is hard, I know,but the manner in which you respond matters greatly. Congratulations on your steadfastness. Una

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  7. "Do journalists put each other on the spot after press briefings normally?"

    Journalists don't. But they've fired all the journalists.

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  8. I wonder if the inability of the journalists to accept even a small part of the truth of being homosexual rests on the very frightening possibility of having all of their prejudices collapse like the house of cards they are thereby negating much of what they have reported previously.

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  9. ¨I wonder if the inability of the journalists to accept even a small part of the truth of being homosexual rests on the very frightening possibility of having all of their prejudices collapse like the house of cards they are thereby negating much of what they have reported previously.¨ PP

    Right, change the word ¨journalists¨ to ¨fundamentalists¨ and you have exactly the same puffedup false foundation built on fear, hate and pride! Imagine beings so faithless in a God that you DEMAND that God allow you to use FALSE INFORMATION to hold your FAITH, and ones emotional/spiritual stability, together!

    What a SHAM! No wonder the bigots get viscious, the clouds are lifting and the view is different and it is they that are hanging off a cliff of selfdeceit!

    Coward you may be in name but in behavior you are NOT! Your name ought be Colin of Brave!

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  10. Thanks for this, Colin. When do we get names these "journalists"???

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  11. Prayers for you and many thanks for your witness that we are not aliens or dangerous or any of the other weird things people seem to attribute to us. Lee

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  12. May God continue to guide ,strengthen and protect u. “Homosexuality is God's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children”..

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