Brenda Harrison – a brief in memoriam

Brenda died on Wednesday 24 February in the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham. Pam, her life partner, slept in the Hospice and was at her bedside for the final hours of Brenda’s life.

Brenda was an amazing person, an evangelical Christian with a passion, and a key member of the Changing Attitude team. She was a campaigner and fighter and was always totally committed to whatever she became involved with. Brenda became involved with Changing Attitude in the early years and was instrumental with others in creating a strong, independent LGBT Anglican witness.

She worked half-time for Changing Attitude for 3 years as administrator and continued to work unpaid with the same commitment until a few weeks before she died. She had also become a trustee and ensured that we adhered to all the legal and financial rules.

Changing Attitude wouldn’t have been organized with such efficiency and we wouldn’t be in such a stable financial position without Brenda. But more than her practical skills, Brenda brought her cheeky smile and a bouncy attitude to meetings and events.

She was involved with many other groups, had been a president of the European Forum, a member of the Evangelical Fellowship, CA convener for Guildford and a member of the Human Sexuality Group in Guildford Diocese. She had many more irons in the fire, all of which helped her cross boundaries and form friendships with a huge network of people.

Brenda was an inspiration to so many and we all have so much to thank her for ~ a determined fore-runner who campaigned for many of the things some now enjoy and take for granted. Brenda wanted the campaigning to continue until all are able to enjoy freedom in the Kingdom of God. Her inspiration and love touched many of us over the years.

Civil Partnerships: Letter and Leader in today’s Times

The Times has published a letter today signed by a number of bishops including several patrons of Changing Attitude, and a leading article. The letter argues in favour of an amendment to the Equality Bill by Lord Ali which would allow Civil Partnerships to be registered in religious buildings.

All but one of the bishops is retired and the bishop of Salisbury is to retire later this year. The bishops of Winchester and Chichester are among those consistently opposing equality for LGBT in the House of Lords. The House of Bishops was described to me two weeks ago by one of the bishops who signed the letter as a dysfunctional mess (or something like that!).

Why do bishops opposed to LGBT equality turn out en masse to vote for intolerance while bishops who support LGBT people in private and actively encourage clergy to register Civil Partnerships stay away when these matters are debated? Are they bullied and intimidated by their conservative brothers in the House? (Shades of Gordon Brown?).

The current stance of those bishops who are vocal is unrepresentative of the majority of Anglicans, destructive of the Church’s mission in England and is having a terrible negative effect on LGBT people, our friends and families and all Christians who believe that justice, truth and love are prime Christian values.

It’s discrimination to stop gay couples taking vows in church

It is inconsistent to affirm the spiritual independence of the CofE but also deny the spiritual independence of three small communities

Sir, The Civil Partnership Act 2004 prohibits civil partnerships from being registered in any religious premises in Great Britain. Three faith communities — Liberal Judaism, the Quakers, and the Unitarians — have considered this restriction prayerfully and decided in conscience that they wish to register civil partnerships on their premises. An amendment to the Equality Bill, to allow this, was debated in the House of Lords on January 25. It was opposed by the Bishops of Winchester and Chichester on the grounds that, if passed, it would put unacceptable pressure on the Church of England. The former said that “churches of all sorts really should not reduce or fudge, let alone deny, the distinction” between marriage and civil partnership.

In the same debate, the bishops were crucial in defeating government proposals to limit the space within which religious bodies are exempt from anti-discrimination law. They see that as a fundamental matter of conscience. But it is inconsistent to affirm the spiritual independence of the Church of England and simultaneously to deny the spiritual independence of the three small communities who seek this change for themselves (and not for anybody else).

The bishops’ “slippery slope” argument is invalid. Straight couples have the choice between civil marriage and religious marriage. Gay couples are denied a similar choice. To deny people of faith the opportunity of registering the most important promise of their lives in their willing church or synagogue, according to its liturgy, is plainly discriminatory. In the US it would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise . . . of religion.

The amendment will be re-presented by Lord Alli on March 2. We urge every peer who believes in spiritual independence, or in non-discrimination, to support it.

Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Oxford
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford
The Right Rev David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury
The Right Rev John Gladwin, Former Bishop of Chelmsford
Lord Harries of Pentregarth, Former Bishop of Oxford
The Right Rev Bill Ind, Former Bishop of Truro
The Right Rev Peter Selby, Former Bishop of Worcester
The Right Rev Kenneth Stevenson, Former Bishop of Portsmouth
The Very Rev Nick Bury, Dean of Gloucester
The Rev Jeremy Caddick, Dean, Emmanuel College, Cambridge
The Very Rev Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans
The Very Rev Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark
Canon Dr Judith Maltby, Chaplain, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Canon Brian Mountford, Vicar of the University Church, Oxford
Canon Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity, New College, Oxford
The Rev Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, Cambridge
Sarah Foot, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History
Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham
Stuart White, Director of the Public Policy Unit, Oxford
Jill Green, Quakers

The leading article:

Equal before God

This Government has done much to bring the law into line with modern attitudes towards homosexuality. It scrapped Section 28 , equalised the age of consent and ended the ban on gays in the Armed Forces.

Now it must resolve the legal asymmetry that prevents homosexual civil partnerships from taking place on religious premises. In a letter to The Times today, a distinguished group of mostly Anglican clergy correctly point out that “straight couples have the choice between civil marriage and religious marriage. Gay couples are denied a similar choice”. That clearly discriminates against homosexuals who are also believers, and three faith communities — Liberal Judaism, the Quakers and the Unitarians — now wish to register civil partnerships on their premises. A legal amendment permitting them to do so is expected to be debated in the House of Lords next month.

The Church of England has so far resisted change, arguing that if some religious groups are allowed to hold civil partnerships then the pressure on the C of E to follow suit will become intolerable. It is a feeble argument. No one is arguing that any church should be forced to conduct a civil partnership. But willing churches should not be precluded from doing so.

Benjamin Disraeli believed the Church of England to be “a part of our liberties, a part of our national character”. If it has any hope of continuing in that role, the Church — and the Government — must recognise that our liberties today should include the right of homosexuals to register the most important promise of their lives in a church.

Are there signs of hope for LGBT people in Africa?

The possibility that there might be signs of hope for LGBT people in Africa seems unlikely in the context of the violence in Kenya and elsewhere and the proposed legislation in Uganda and Nigeria.

On Saturday gug blogged about the Barzai in Kampala, the forum he attended and tweeted from. He reports that he stood and spoke, but not as gug. His closet, he said, is wide open and he just needs a little nudge to come out and flower. But the forum wasn’t the place.

Gug got me thinking. In the month following the publication of the Anti-homosexuality Bill in early October, there were signs that it might lead to the introduction of similar legislation in other African countries. For some time, I feared that it might lead to the introduction of a wave of similar punitive Bills. Many African members of the Commonwealth already have draconian ex-colonial legislation on the statute book so that any new legislation is really unnecessary and looks simply vindictive.

The future looked bad for some weeks, with the probability of increased public hostility, prejudice, intolerance and aggression, which has indeed happened in Uganda and Kenya. It looked (and may still look) as if an increased risk of public humiliation, arrest, imprisonment and death is the inevitable outcome for LGBT Africans. But the multiplying of Bills didn’t happen and it has become more than a possibility that the Uganda Bill itself will not be enacted.

All of the above risks to LGBT people are ever present risk and may yet become reality. But I think that another scenario is unfolding at the same time as the potential for punitive legislation and a diminishment of safety and dignity for LGBT people.

What difference would the Uganda Bill make in reality? Would priests and bishops, for example, refuse to listen to and talk with LGBT people and report anyone they knew to be gay to the police? In Nigeria, what difference would the anti-gay marriage act make? No-one was proposing to legalise gay marriage in the first place so the bill was always an attempt to play on prejudice and pre-empt moves to acknowledge the presence of LGBT people in society.

At the moment, it looks likely that neither bill will be enacted. There was strong international condemnation of the Nigerian Bill by LGBT organisations and the Ugandan Bill has created huge international political condemnation with economic sanctions threatened. Martin Ssempa’s display of pornographic gay images in church has made him a figure of derision. The Million Man March so loudly trumpeted by him never materialised.

Both bills have mobilised opposition to LGBT people in their respective countries, using conservative Christian teaching (labelled traditional and orthodox) to mobilise Christian support.

But I think there is good news as a by-product of the various anti-gay initiatives.

LGBT people in Africa may have been intimidated by the anti-gay hysteria but some of them have also been motivated to work for change and stand up for themselves and their human rights.

International networks and relationships between pro-LGBT groups and individuals have been activated and strengthened. This is certainly true for Changing Attitude and our links across Africa. The internet is proving to be a huge influence in disseminating news and information and creating effective alliances.

A public discourse in each of the countries concerned has been started - not, perhaps, what the homophobes anticipated. Lesbian and gay attacks and anti-gay campaigns are regularly reported by the media. This means that people are learning about the real presence of LGBT people in their culture even if their prejudices are being fuelled at the moment. But people will also ask questions, especially if they suspect that someone in their own family or social network might be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Pro-gay arguments are also being articulated and the subject is now irrevocably on the agenda – it will never go away.

Even were the Ugandan or Nigerian bills to be passed, this process will continue. I suspect that far more positive progress has been made in the past 4 months since the Anti-homosexuality Bill was published than is as yet obvious in the public domain.

I prophesy that the anti-gay campaigns will be counter-productive and will eventually bring about the very thing they are set up to eradicate – the acknowledgement and acceptance of LGBT people in African societies.

Uganda pastor Martin Ssempa screens gay porn in church

Pastor Martin Ssempa, the Christian leader driving support for the Anti-homosexuality Bill, whose Million-Man March was supposed to have taken place on Ash Wednesday until banned by the police, decided instead to screen gay porn in Pastor Kiganda’s church in Kampala on Wednesday evening. The screening was attended by around 300 supporters crammed into an evangelical church. This is the most astonishing way to mark Ash Wednesday that I have ever heard and if a church in the UK or North America chose to screen gay porn in church on any occasion, let alone Ash Wednesday, the backlash would be intense and unforgiving.

Martin Ssempa told the supporters:

"We had planned to have a million-man and -woman march in Kampala but unfortunately we were told that we could not march because of security concerns. The major argument homosexuals have is that what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms is nobody's business but do you know what they do in their bedrooms?," he asked, and then displayed a slide show of gay pornographic pictures. "This one is eating another man's penis," the pastor said, before going into even more graphic descriptions. "Is this what Obama wants to bring to Africa?" he said, following fierce US criticism the Anti-homosexuality Bill.

In his report about Ssempa’s gay pornography Ash Wednesday in church, gug says he has heard that some mainstream Christians have had enough and are going to publicly oppose the bill. They are Anglicans and their strongly heart-felt opposition will be in marked contrast to the 'wishy washy hypocrisy' of the Church of Uganda. If they are to have any more credibility, says gug, Christians will have to claim back their Church.

Gug watched the programme Agenda Uganda on NTV last night, in which Pastor Solomon Male justified the killing of gay Ugandans because they have refused to change. He said gays should be killed because the Bible says so, and the audience applauded – another extraordinary message for Ash Wednesday.

This morning, gug decided to send an email letter to the key supporters of the Bill:

MP David Bahati, sponsor of the Bill, who is doing all this in defence of the traditional family
MP Benson Obua Ogwal, co-sponsor the bill, who calls gug a gay pervert because the Bible calls him so
MP Nsaba-Buturo who is a born again Christian, fierce proponent of the Bill and the Minister for Ethics and Integrity
Speaker Ssekandi, the man with the official final say with what goes on in parliament
Stephen Langa, the 'ideologue' behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and a fierce defender of the family (but presumably not against gay porn!)

Gug wrote:

Dear Sirs,
Last night, I watched Pastor Solomon Male on Agenda Uganda on NTV justifying the killing of gay Ugandans, because they could not, or would not change.
This morning, I see this article: Ugandan Pastor screens gay porn in Church.

It would be laughable if it wasn’t the truth. Of course Ssempa has done exactly the same thing many times. And, the Minister of Ethics and Integrity looks on... Martin Ssempa has screened gay porn at press conferences. He has done so at the National Theatre. He has done so at many other places which the press has simply not reported about. He has gone into graphic descriptions of gay porn on Television, and the Broadcasting Council is yet to caution any of the stations, or even the man of God.

Is it because it is Gay Porn? Or is it because it makes gay people look bad? Or, will someone soon claim that there are laws against 'straight porn' and none against 'gay porn'? This debate has reached, or has always been at the heights of hypocrisy.

Or, maybe it is the Christian thing to do, to screen porn in Church? Maybe I used to know a different Christianity.

Gayuganda

Gug says Ssempa is breaking one of the clauses of his own Bill, which says:

Section 13; Promotion of homosexuality.

(1). A person who -

(a) participates in production, procuring, marketing, broadcasting, disseminating, publishing pornographic materials for purposes of promoting homosexuality;

commits an offence is liable on conviction to a fine of five thousand currency points or imprisonment of a minimum of seven years or both fine and imprisonment.

Gug reports on the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill march in Jinja

Gug has blogged today about the demonstrations that happened in Jinja on Monday. For some reason The Monitor took two days to report the demonstrations and New Vision carried no reports. The demonstration drew hundreds of people and lasted 2-3 hours. The pictures come from the Monitor.


Here are excerpts from the Monitor reports:

Hundreds of Jinja residents took to the streets on Monday in support of the anti-homosexuality Bill. Chanting messages peppered with anti-gay slurs and displaying placards denouncing the practice, the demonstrators made their way around the town led by religious leaders in a procession that brought business to a temporary stand still.

Western leaders rebuked

The demonstrators also criticised Western leaders’ disapproval of the Bill. “Obama leave Ugandans alone,” “Obama to hell with your aid,” were some of the messages written on the placards.

“Of what importance is homosexuality to us? It is as if we have no brains. Let them keep their homosexuality and keep their money as well!” a woman among the shouting crowd yelled.

Speaking following the procession that lasted about two hours, Pastor Martin Ssempa, one of the prominent supporters of the Bill, said it was a shame that the US president had taken to supporting the un-African custom and expected Uganda to follow suit. “Obama even if you do not give us money for medicine for our people, to hell with that money, we would rather die but die in dignity,” he said.

He added: “This is Uganda and we also have our rights just like the Americans have theirs. We decide for ourselves what is good for us. So these leaders should leave us alone to make our own legislations that are good for us.” The clerics, who preached against the practice at a crusade held at the Kazi Mingi grounds in the town, also claimed the media had failed in its duty to fight the practice.

Pastor Matthias Sserugo said: “The anti-gay federation is not here to express their hatred for homosexuals but to tell them that they can change and society can accept them once more.” President Museveni recently expressed opposition to some sections of the proposed Bill noting that they would harm Uganda’s foreign policy.

Martin Ssempa had been proclaiming that today, Ash Wednesday, a Million Man March in support of the Bill would take place in Kampala. Ssempa has been declaring that the Lenten season is the period of mobilisation and mass action to have the bill passed so that by Easter Day the bill should be law.

It would seem that the international pressure and the political implications of the Private Members Bill are having an effect not only on its progress but on the ability of Bahati and Ssempa to organize support in favour of the Bill. I sense parallels with the Nigerian Same Gender Marriage Prohibition Bill which although not dead, has never been passed into law. There are also echoes of the failure, to date, of the conservative pressure groups in the Anglican Communuion to achieve their goal of splitting the Church and isolating the North American, openly gay-affirming Provinces.

Conservatives have campaigned on these three issues with great confidence and conviction. Things are not working out as they planned, for which I give thanks. Forces hostile to LGBT people are still intense and well organised, but other, more benign forces are at work in creation. Affirmative campaigns can achieve significant change by mobilising pro-gay political and Christian opinion and individuals like gug can move mountains by staying in the heat, telling the truth and allowing the world to learn from the experience of one honest, courageous gay Ugandan.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Presidential Address – Jean Mayland, Changing Attitude Patron and Trustee responds

Changing Attitude patrons and trustees hold a spectrum of opinions about the stance we should take in response to the Anglican Covenant and the strategic attitude towards the process of changing Communion attitudes towards LGBT people. The Revd Jean Mayland, retired Church Life Secretary for CTBI holds a more hawkish position than me and reacted more negatively to the Archbishop’s Presidential Address. She is pictured below on the Modern Churchperson's Union stall at Lambeth 2008. Her response follows.


The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Presidential Address - a personal response

I first heard accounts of the Address as I drove home from York and felt very angry. I read the analysis of the speech by Ruth Gledhill in ‘The Times’ and read the text of the address through twice. I am still angry and I will try to define why.

I think it is because the Archbishop rebukes everyone else but never seems to acknowledge his own responsibility or failure of leadership. The only positive aspect is that he makes a half hearted apology to gay and lesbian people.

But first, the issue of women bishops and those of us who are campaigning for it. The Archbishop accuses us of not listening and just pushing our own demands.

I made my first speech in Church Assembly on the ordination of women in 1967 when I was 31. I listened to Dr Demant who told us that we only wanted to be priests because we were jealous of men as we did not have a penis. We wanted one too, aparently! I am now 73 and I have been listening to our opponents from both ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum for over 40 years! What a time in the wilderness. As well as listening we have been discussing and arguing and working and debating on and on and on and they never change - in fact Forward in Faith and Reform have become more and more rigid in their stance.

How dare that man tell me to listen! He came in at the end of the process and did not listen himself!

In his address the Archbishop accused us of jeopardising the current situation by insisting on provision just on our terms. He also says that what we hear is the rest of the Church saying, ‘Of course we want you – but exclusively on our terms, not yours’; which translates in the ears of many as ‘We don’t actually want you at all’.

I actually do not hear the Church saying this about women - the great majority of the Church wants us. It is the Archbishops who give us the impression that they are not listening to us and that we are expendable and of little value. We have asked for terms which place proper value of women and will not harm the church.

We oppose ‘Flying Bishops’ because they have entrenched opposition, supported the bullying of women and marred the catholic nature of the Church. We have never defended privilege or our own 'rights’. We have made demands which the majority of the church and those in secular society who have an interest at all, can see are just, fair and moderate. I do not think that over the years WATCH has campaigned in any way of which we should be ashamed .We have tried to be 'wise as serpents' but we have also tried to be 'harmless as doves.'

Gay and Lesbian People

The Archbishop in his address did give a sort of half hearted apology to gay and lesbian people and yet at the same time he defended the opposition of the Church in the House of Lords to the Equality Bill .He argues that the Bishops in the Lords were arguing for Religious Freedom. When one remembers the real struggle for religious freedom that took place in the Communist countries in Soviet times, then he does not have a clue. Anyway what was the religious freedom he was arguing for? It is freedom for the Church to discriminate against women and against gay and lesbian people. He says the discrimination against the latter was a small exception - but it means that gay ‘would be clergy’ living in a faithful partnership cannot be ordained - or if they do many of them live in fear. It means that they and lay people can be denied jobs if homophobic church members oppose them.

Behind this is the demand that clergy and church lay workers in civil partnerships should be celibate. Why? Celibacy in the Church of England has always been a vocation and not a matter of compulsion. Faithful commitment should be supported and not condemned and gay people have as much right to enjoy the God given gift of sex as straight people. The Bishops also made serious demands about transgender people that showed complete lack of understanding and care. Only the Bishop of Chichester wavered a bit and showed a bit of care and said it was very complicated.

Why should the Church seek an exemption from the Equality Bill so that it can exclude people in this way? When I worked at Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) the first discussion papers about bringing the legislation concerning different marginalised groups together were published and they struck me as caring and concerned and Christ-like.

Now I am ashamed and angry that the Church seeks exemption. What about Genesis in and even Paul about no Jew or Gentile etc?

The Covenant

The situation became even worse when the Archbishop moved on to the issue of the Covenant which he praised and desired. This would create a two tiered Anglican Communion and would be an instrument for the oppression of gay and lesbian people.

I assume that Nigeria - homophobic, anti women, allowing and even supporting violence against women (but of course very Biblically based!!!!) would be in the top tier and the USA – open, liberal, caring, mission conscious, generous but very suspect because of its Biblical criticism and gay clergy would be in the bottom tier.

The other quite amusing thing (one either laughs or cries) is that I am sure the Archbishop assumes England will be in the top tier. What would then happen if the General Synod decides that we should have women bishops, ordain practising gay men and women and bless civil partnerships? Do we then go down to level two? The province of Canterbury a second class Anglican Province – at last one can laugh rather than scream.

Jean Mayland

Pro-gay meeting held in Kampala and alternative march held in Jinja as Ssempa’s million man anti-gay march cancelled by the police

The Daily Monitor in Kampala reports that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kampala, one of the few religious organizations in Uganda that supports the gay community, held a conference on Sunday to highlight the need for an end to discriminatory treatment of the gay population in Uganda.

According their website, the Reverend Martin Lavanhar, President of Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry and senior minister at All Souls Unitarian Church arrived in Uganda on Thursday last week to launch a campaign against the Bill. Bill Sherman, one of the organizers of the conference, declined to disclose details of the meeting citing security reasons.

“Under most circumstances I would be happy to give you this contact information. But with security concerns so high, I am reluctant to do so,” Mr Sherman told the Daily Monitor in an e-mail. However, the Inspector General of Police, General Kayihura said he was not aware of the meeting and vowed to arrest them.

Gug, being, as he says, an infidel and non believer, didn’t go to the campaign meeting at the JBK Hotel but was there in spirit. He was there in the flesh later for the ‘after-party’ event, when they gathered in a bar, drank and laughed and danced and met others that they never knew existed in this world. It was a blast, he says. He had never seen so many kuchus gathered in one place, celebrating something as simple as St Valentine’s day of love.

The Daily Monitor also reports that on Sunday, the police moved to halt the planned million man demonstration in support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which was scheduled for Wednesday, saying that the government is still sorting 'issues out' Police halts anti-gay demo as pro-gay activists secretly meet in Kampala.

Pastor Martin Ssempa, one of the organisers of the demonstration confirmed that the Inspector of Police Major General Kale Kayihura had contacted them and proposed a meeting on Tuesday before the Wednesday demonstration. “It is true Gen. Kayihura sent us a text message that he hasn’t cleared the demonstration. He said we should meet him on Tuesday to forge a way forward,” Pastor Ssempa said. Gen. Kayihura said, “We asked them to postpone the demonstration because government has some issues to sort out and they agreed.”

Alternative demonstration held in Jinja today

Gug has just confirmed that there was some kind of smaller demonstration in support of the bill by Pastor Martin Ssempa and and his supporters in Jinja, Uganda's second largest town. This is an interesting development and here is assessment why:

The government wouldn’t want a demonstration because they have realised that the waters they have stirred up are too stormy on too many fronts. So, they have to calm down those waters.

Ssempa follows a different agenda. He wants the demonstration; he wants to show support for the Bill and wants it to become law.

So, from what I gather from the Monitor report, Sunday, the Inspector General of Police who is head of all the police in Uganda, Kale Kayihura, said they didn’t have permission for the march on Kampala. They had scheduled Tuesday as the date to meet with him and discuss options.

Why would a spontaneous demonstration have been organized in Jinja? I would understand that if Ssempa wanted one and didn’t want the police to meet him with tear gas and batons, he would organise it very fast and not in Kampala.... and hope the government accepts the fait accompli, which is what happened.

The demonstration in Jinja means that Ssempa is going rogue, counting on popular support to force through the bill. He is, of course, dumping the government in the process, which does not take such things very happily, especially if there was an agreement that they would meet on Tuesday to discuss a way forward.

Gug admits his assessment may be wrong because the government could have given the green light for the demonstration. The police have proved themselves adept at stopping opposition demonstrations in the past, so how could Ssempa's have taken place without their tacit approval?