Author Archives: Andrew McFarland Campbell
Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
A break from the norm. Apparently.
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 25 May at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. There will be Twix in addition to the usual biscuits. More details….
St George’s Welcome
I was at the Parish Church of Saint George in Belfast this morning and I was pleased to see copies of the parish welcome leaflet which is being launched on Thursday. The title of the leaflet is If someone in your family is gay or lesbian – what your church family can do to offer support. It is produced by Changing Attitude Ireland. The leaflet states:
Being welcomed and participating in their local faith community is the foundation of spiritual support that the Church offers to baptised persons who are gay and their families.
I’ve been going to St George’s a lot recently—and not just because Faith, Pride, and Chat is held there. It is a wonderfully welcoming church, even for people with a somewhat eclectic Christian background like me. The atmosphere in the church is summed up by 1 John 5:1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child”, and John 15:12, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Both of those verses were in the readings at the Eucharist this morning.
IDAHO Services 2012
Changing Attitude Ireland is hosting several events for IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia) this week.
| Date | Time | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday, 13 May 2012 | 11.00 a.m. | St Annes, Shandon, Cork Eucharist Speaker: Clive Davis |
| Sunday, 13 May 2012 | 3.30 p.m. | Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Speaker: Revd. Sandra Pragnell |
| Sunday, 13 May 2012 | 4.00 p.m. | St Columb’s Cathedral, Londonderry Speaker: Paul Rowlandson |
| Sunday, 13 May 2012 | 7.00 p.m. | St Mary’s Catherdral, Limerick Speaker: Revd. Jane Galbraith |
| Sunday, 13 May 2012 | 7.30 p.m. | Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford Speaker: Bishop Michael Burrows |
| Thursday, 17 May 2012 | 4.00 p.m. | St George’s, High Street, Belfast Launch of LGBT parish welcome leaflet Speaker: Pádraig O’Tuama |
| Sunday, 20 May 2012 | 3.00 p.m. | St George’s, High Street, Belfast IDAHO service Speaker: Professor Michael O’Flaherty, Chief Commissioner NI Human Rights Commission |
Open Letter to LGBTQ-phobic Pastor Sean Harris
This line sums up so much of what it means to be Christian: “Because here’s the thing: I’m a Christian. One who believes that God doesn’t make mistakes.”
Homophobic North Carolina preacher Sean Norris recently gave a sermon in which he advocated physically assaulting gender variant toddlers. Listen to it here. This letter is my response to him.
Dear Pastor Harris,
Hi. I’m C.J.’s Mom and boy would you hate me! I have a little boy who likes “feminine” things and I’ve allowed him to do so. I’ve even shared it with people on the internet. But, not by taking pictures and posting them on YouTube, as you suggest — mostly because that’s not exactly how YouTube works, I think you have it confused with Facebook, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to get at anyway.
My point is my son is gender variant. He’s a little boy who likes all things girly, like playing with dolls and wearing skirts. My son started acting a little girlish at age two and a half and I…
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Marriage and Civil Partnerships
There has been a lot of talk about the dangers of gay marriage over the past few weeks. Allowing gay people to get married would, it is alleged, damage society and harm families. Not only that, but gay people themselves don’t want to get married, as shown by the low take up rates of gay marriage where it is available.
In the UK, we don’t have gay marriage, at least not at the moment. We do have a very similar institution: civil partnerships. These have been around since late 2005, and the statistics are interesting. In England and Wales between 2006 and 2010, there were 40,921 civil partnerships. Over the same period there were 1,184,158 marriages.
In other words, 3.34% of all legal unions in England and Wales were civil partnerships, and the rest (96.66%) were marriages. The figures, broken down by year, are shown in the following…
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Language and Equal Marriage
One year ago today Michael and I formed our civil partnership – that is to day we went through a process of signing paperwork in the presence of witnesses that made our relationship official in the eyes of the law. Had we been an opposite-sex couple, it would have been a civil wedding.
Being a loving and dutiful civil partner, I got Michael an anniversary card. I looked in various shops, and I saw cards that cost 50p and cards that cost £5. I saw cards with romantic designs, and cards with cartoons. I saw cards the size of your hand, and I saw cards the size of a small child. There was one thing I didn’t see. There were plenty of anniversary cards for husbands, and plenty of anniversary cards for wives, but I didn’t see any for civil partners.
“Civil partner” is a very peculiar term, in my…
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Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 27 April at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. More detail….
Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 30 March at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. More detail….
Accepting Sexuality Annual Lecture: Notes on the Margins of the Church
Accepting Sexuality, a Methodist group, will be holding it’s annual lecture Notes on the Margins of the Church at 8 pm on Friday 24 February in Grosvenor House, Glengall Street, Belfast. The lecture is held in association with Changing Attitude Ireland.
Revd Dr Hugh Rayment-Pickard will be speaking about why the Church needs the people it has pushed to the margins: if the church really seeks insights it needs to those whom it has pushed away.
Hugh Rayment-Pickard MBE is a founder and currently Director ot Communications for the education charity lntoUniversity. Before that, he worked for over 20 years as a priest in London parishes. He is the author of several publications including The Myths of Time: from St Augustine to American Beauty and The Inclusive God.
Accepting Sexuality is an informal group of Methodists, ordained and lay, working for the Church’s welcome and inclusion of LGBT people.
Changing Attitude Ireland is a Church ot Ireland organisation with ecumenical Friends, working For the inclusion of LGBT persons within the Churches.
Faith and Pride 2012: Call for Contributions
The theme for this years Faith and Pride event in July is Fear Not, taken from Luke 12:32.
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
As with last year, the event will consist of two talks, each about half an hour long. If you would like to give one of the talks, or be involved in any way, please contact us. Although Faith and Pride is a Christian organisation, contributors do not have to be Christian. Contributions should reflect the theme of Fear Not in some way, and should be consistent with our ethos: “We’re not about arguing or putting down someone else’s view. We’re putting forward an alternative view.”
We also invite submissions of papers and articles of interest to gay Christians. Although articles and papers do not have to have a theme of Fear Not, they should still be consistent with our ethos.
Faith and Pride 