Tag: gay rights

Maybe we could try not treating LGBTIQA+ people and their allies like the enemy (or, doing what Jesus said to do to our enemies)

Victoria passed its Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill yesterday and the online reaction is predictably polarising.

I’ve written about why I think this was a bad Bill, but also why Christian opposition to the Bill was misguided and doomed to fail previously. I don’t have skin in the game on this fight (though Queensland has its own laws), but, my parents are moving to Melbourne in coming weeks to take up a job with a significant Melbourne Presbyterian Church, so I’m not exactly a disinterested observer either.

This morning the usual culture war champions Martyn Iles and Lyle Shelton have come out swinging against ‘Dictator Dan,’ Lyle is busy proclaiming this the death of liberal democracy (he’s also doing his best to disparage his home suburb of West End, in Brisbane, every time he opens a video blog), while young Martyn, when he’s not mansplaining vaccines, or defending Craig Kelly and Israel Folau, is also devoting significant attention to the Bill.

It’s been great that everyone who has spoken out against the Bill — including Lyle — have spoken explicitly against Conversion TherapyTM, the particularly coercive attempts to pressure same sex attracted people into orientation change. But almost every statement I’ve read has followed the condemnation of Conversion Therapy with a disclaimer that this is a unicorn, or phantom, or non existent problem, in order to pivot to smashing the Bill’s overreach.

I also appreciate David Bennett’s reaction to the Bill. David is a ‘Side B’ Christian (same sex attracted and committed to celibacy, read my review of his book A War of Loves here — that could well be a banned book now). He says, in a pretty powerful critique, that this is an attempt from the Victorian Government to ‘colonise queer Christian bodies.’

Look. This is complex. Christians are anxious — and despite the consistent disclaimer that we should be ‘not anxious’ even while reacting against this Bill, the reaction itself is a picture of an anxious response that the disclaimer isn’t overcoming. More than being non-anxious — we should be loving to our neighbours (including our political leaders), perhaps especially to those in our community it now seems needed an act of parliament to be protected from us (while we kept asking to keep being able to do things that apparently harmed them).

But here are three suggestions for a way forward for Christians — whether you’re in Victoria, or in a state yet to legislate in this area.

Show the LGBTIQA+ people in church communities you don’t want to eradicate or ‘colonise’ them

I mentioned David Bennett’s contribution to the discussion around this Bill above — of all the Side B Christians I know, he’s the first I’ve seen publicly respond to this Bill; and he, like others I know, has also given significant energy to carving out space for Side B Christians in theologically conservative churches. There’s a variety of possible positions for same sex attracted, or gay, Christians, and the labels Side B, Side A, and Ex-Gay are prominent options (there’s also a ‘Side Y’). Side A are the people who believe committed gay relationships are within God’s design for sex and marriage, Side B are those who don’t look to ‘change’ or ‘suppress’ their orientation, but redirect their lives and love to Jesus (typically they would be ‘celibate gay Christians’ or Christians in mixed orientation marriages), ex-Gay Christians are those who no longer ‘identify’ as same sex attracted, possibly having experienced therapeutic intervention.

In my observation, being a Side B Christian in conservative Christian institutions (and families) is pretty fraught. You get smashed from all sides:

  • from Side A, because you have decided their conclusions are erroneous and sinful, and they fear you are suppressing something that you require for a flourishing life, even in the church,
  • from Side ex, and lots of heterosexual church leaders because you are not fully ‘mortifying’ your sin and ‘changing your identity’ (and there’s plenty of policing about what label you can or can’t use, and what you should and shouldn’t do — both institutionally, and within families),
  • from the world, because you’re not pursuing the expression of your authentic self based on your natural desires, you are suppressing something, and that is perceived as being harmful.

At the same time this Bill was being debated, church denominations like mine were writing documents that made Side B Christians in our community feel more marginalised; this is common around the world as major conservative evangelical denominations — of the kind most at risk from something like Victoria’s Bill — were busy also policing the identity-marking language used by celibate gay Christians — one denomination said such people shouldn’t call themselves  a ‘Same sex attracted Christian,’ or ‘a ‘gay Christian’ but rather ‘a Christian who experiences same sex attraction’ — this sort of thing, then, gets used in family and church contexts to further marginalise these brothers and sisters; often looking (and feeling) a lot like they are being asked to ‘convert’ or ‘suppress’ something about themselves; and often in ways that are damaging and harmful. Every time I write about things like this I end up with more stories from people.

When we say ‘conversion therapy is a unicorn’ we have to be sensitive to the way our ongoing posture, as an institutional church, is causing harm — there are brothers and sisters so committed to Jesus and his bride, the church, that they remain in our communities despite this harm (and all human relationships involve a modicum of harm). But there are many others who have experienced this sort of policing of their person, our own internal identity politicking, who have left the church feeling harmed or traumatised.

I’m not sure that church experiences alone are ever the entire picture of trauma or harm experienced by gay people — suicidality in LGBTIQA+ communities is also disproportionately large in more liberal and supportive countries than Australia — but we have to own that we do not have a good record, or reputation, for loving LGBTIQA+ people in church communities, let alone those outside the church.

The theological posturing behind our identity politics on this feels a lot like assuming a modernist framework, and one built around renaissance-slash-reformation liberalism, and its emphasis on ‘the individual’ and ‘identity’ — and I’m not sure these are coherent theological categories to use to solve complex questions. This cuts both ways, because I’m not sure ‘gay identity’ is a coherent anthropological category in a totalising way — I’m probably more inclined to see descriptors as experiential rather than ‘ontological’ or to pursue a ‘narrative ontology,’ and one that accommodates the givenness of our bodies, and relationships, as genuine realities, over some sort of personal desire based neo-gnostic thing anyway. But we’re way underdone in our theology around personhood and desire — and until we’re not pumping out Margaret Courts and Israel Folaus without clear differentiation between their positions and ‘orthodox Christianity,’ and indeed, so long as we keep saying these sorts of marginal figures are orthodox simply because we agree with them on orthopraxy (or more literally, how people should use their genitals), we won’t get anywhere good (I mean, Folau doesn’t even embrace the Trinity).

The thing is, it’s our Side B Christians — like David Bennett — who are having to do not just the emotional, but the intellectual, labour on these questions; and rather than colonising them and insisting they align their experiences as closely as possible to ours, maybe we should be listening to them… I don’t just say this as a cheap ‘virtue signal’ thing either — the work of writers like Wesley Hill (and others at Spiritual Friendship), Nate Collins and people in the Revoice team, or Ed Shaw and others at Living Out — is way ahead of heterosexual Christian thought leadership on sexuality, the body, and identity — even as people in each of those groups have theological disagreements. These guys are the ‘desert fathers’ of the modern world; experientially disconnected from the mainstream idolatry of sex and individualism, and so in a position to critique the way the church has been swept up in idolatrous systems.

Show your LGBTIQA+ neighbours you understand the pain caused by Christians (and Christendom) as they celebrate this legal change

There are people in the Australian community genuinely rejoicing today and feeling like a victory has been won — not just the cynical culture warriors who’ve used this as a wedge issue to advance a progressive agenda and score social capital points without tackling deep, complex, structural issues (this is pretty low hanging fruit in a culture war). There are those who have pastored Side A Christians whose experiences of conservative churches have been deeply traumatic, those who’ve seen lives lost to suicide where bad Christian practices have been part of the story, those who are not Christian who see this as part of the ongoing march towards justice for their community-of-identity. In our collective grief and anger it would be easy to marginalise or dismiss that joy — rather than learning from it and asking where we should have reformed our behaviour both in the church, and outside it.

The same political actors who drove the Christian contribution to the culture war on Same Sex Marriage have not learned, and, as they double down not only are we continuing to set fire to our social capital (if we had any left after the plebiscite, or royal commission), they continue to perpetuate the reputation that Christians are homophobes who can’t live civilly in community with people who disagree with them. Fighting against this Bill, with whatever nuance we can muster, against the backdrop of rejecting the extension of participation in a civil institution to people who wanted it broadened to include them, and against harming vulnerable minors in our institutional care, looks a whole lot like Christians insisting on our rights to keep harming minors in our care, especially LGBTIQA+ minors. It was a deck way stacked against us, and the more we speak, the worse we look — we can’t say ‘we don’t like conversion therapy’ and ‘but it’s a unicorn’ while saying ‘let us keep doing what we’re doing’ if the perception is that we do bad things to people. We’d be better off investing in rebuilding our social capital — especially with the LGBTIQA+ community.

We should be signing up for ally training in our workplaces, advocating for improvements in mental health and wellbeing for LGBTIQA+ people, gently engaging with the complexity of the umbrella where the Trans political ideology finds itself at odds with LGB experience (and feminism), listening carefully and responding with love and concern both to individuals and, where possible, pushing for legitimate structural/systemic reform for the good of our neighbours. Pastoral theologian Mark Yarhouse, who is widely published on issues around sexuality and gender and writes from his own perspective as someone holding a traditional Christian sexual ethic, but also as someone who has conducted secular research in this field, co-authored a book in 2020 titled Emerging Gender Identities: Understanding the Diverse Experiences of Today’s Youth. A friend shared this quote from the book on Facebook:

“If theologically conservative Christians were as committed as politically active LGBTQ+ are to developing and upholding policies that protect all people, including vulnerable transgender people, in matters like bathroom access and workplace violence, perhaps our current polarisation could be attentuated, even if we still experience disagreements about human anthropology and the like.”

Perhaps indeed. It’d be nice to give it a try at least — the old ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ or ‘treat others as you would have them treat you’ (not ‘as they treat you’) — you know — what Jesus calls his followers to do. Personally, I’d like my neighbours to respect and allow my ability to gather in community with those I belong to, to freely practice my beliefs, and, inasmuch as possible, to be able to have the government recognise and allow me to practice my sexuality in a committed and safe relationship framework (while recognising that the government has a role in stopping me using my freedoms to hurt others).

Perhaps loving relationships across culture war divides, built on reciprocity and genuine seeking the interest of others is the best defence against Christian teaching meeting the legal threshold for action under this Bill. Harm.

Maybe Christians could do this with people who’ve got other experiences/identities shaping their approach to participation in community — like LGBTIQA+ individuals, but perhaps Christians in Victoria could do this, as well, by, you know, joining the Labor Party. Do some branch stacking of our own — and actually turn up to meetings and participate in political life.

Don’t fight the culture war

The absolute hottest of hot takes on this legislation ignores (or minimises) the face value rationale given for its introduction. LGBTIQA+ rights are definitely a hallmark progressive agenda item — partly because of critical theory, and intersectionality, and the left’s commitment to undoing structural inequality and its connection to patriarchy. But this is complicated — it’s the same ‘intersectionality’ that presents pressing issues for this bill; LGB groups and feminists have issues with trans ideology. Something has to give on that front, which means the ideological basis for this legislation as a piece of virtue signalling is weak — but — there’s also the genuine face value reason given, and that reason is possibly sufficient grounds for a progressive government to act in the interest of its polis. LGBTIQA+ individuals are statistically speaking, more vulnerable — and we don’t know all the factors leading to that vulnerability, but some of those factors are environmental/cultural — and some of that comes from Christendom and its moral frame (the sort of frame that saw homosexuality criminalised), and some of that comes from church practices (the type that has parents ostracising gay kids, with the support of their church community). We didn’t — and don’t seem willing — to get our own house in order on this issue. Maybe the Government actually is genuinely acting because of Christian bigotry, genuine harm, and a legitimate research paper into Christian culture and practices being a contributor. Maybe it’s evidence based — with a dash of ideology thrown in — and maybe it’s the ideology that led to overreach (noting that the Queensland government has already banned conversion therapy in clinical/professional settings and didn’t reach quite so far into the hard left’s bag of tricks).

The hottest of hot takes is that this Bill represents a government that is out to get Christians. That it is the thin end of a wedge — and next they’ll send out right-think manuals for churches, and then they’ll come for our sermons. Ultimately we’ll have to chop Romans 1 out of the Bible.

Let’s assume the premise of this hot take for a moment; that the concept of ‘conversion therapy’ is a phantom — or unicorn — that churches are beautiful and harmless communities committed to the flourishing of gay individuals in our families, and in the broader community, perhaps, then, this really is an attempt by the Victorian Government to eradicate us religious people who are beyond the pale… a crushing blow in the culture war… Perhaps this is the next stop on a ‘slippery slope’ or ‘cultural marxism’s long march through our institutions’ we keep being told about (rather than the ongoing pendulum swing towards leveling the legal/cultural playing field that once treated homosexual sex as illegal, and where there’s still work to go for that community in securing the freedoms it believes it needs to live a flourishing life).

Let’s assume the premise that the other side is fighting a culture war, hell-bent on our destruction; if that’s truly the case, we should respond in a heaven-bent way. The same person who said “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” — Matthew 5:38-45

Our anxious temptation in the hottest of hot takes is to feel the heat and fight fire with fire. To lobby. To write letters (that in the context sound like we’re asking to keep harming people).

We should, as our Lord says, turn the other cheek. If the government is behaving badly, and there are those who would use this law to bring action against Christians we have a guidebook, and a guide: our crucified King. The answer to others playing a culture war against the church is not for us to play the culture war right back; it’s for us to be peacemakers who are ambassadors for Christ and ministers of reconciliation because we have been reconciled to God and are now part of his kingdom.

I’m often called naive for minimising the threat of the secular left (where, mostly, I just want to point out the similar threat posed by the secular right). I’m often asked, when I say, ‘don’t fight the culture war’ accused of pushing some sort of quietism, or asked whether I think that will work (whether ‘working’ is changing hearts, or minds, or legislation, or just ‘stopping them hitting us’). To be honest, I don’t assess the rightness of political action based on the results it might produce — but rather, on what it cultivates in me (and would cultivate in others). I do think that, over time, virtuous political action presented in a compelling way can bring positive change (think Wilberforce and slavery, or pretty much the historic impact of Christianity on the western world), but I don’t think it’s a short term silver bullet — and — frankly, I don’t think Christians are meant to pick actions that ‘win’ political fights or produce particular results — I think we’re meant to ‘do good,’ and that this ultimately is about following the example of Jesus, who, remember, was crucified by the state. I think the point of ‘martyrdom’ (that is, actions that testify to a bigger truth) is vindication by God, ultimately, because we have been faithful witnesses to his kingdom.

The good news is that if we respond to those who are seeking to do evil to us (again, still assuming there’s a nefarious agenda at play here, not the charitable surface level read of the motivations of the Victorian government, and those who voted for and advocated for this Bill)… if we respond to their evil with love, that exposes their evil for what it is, as Paul puts it in Romans 12:20-21: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Why not try this?

It’s the same school of thinking that, when they were coming for our bakers, said ‘if someone wants to sue you for not making them a cake, bake them a wedding cake and give it to them for free’… We could be surprisingly loving in the face of hostility, rather than defensive and reactive. We could do things that rebuild some social capital, rather than setting it on fire as a beacon to our own self-righteousness. We could be a community of people who have a reputation not for harming LGBTIQA+ people, but pursuing their flourishing, even as we disagree on their theological convictions, in the hope that our love for them might be a plausible picture of the better humanity we find in Jesus and his kingdom.

We could be so loving and nurturing LGBTIQA+ people in our communities that not only are they plausible advocates for the goodness of the Gospel — even at personal cost of sex — not only are those individuals clearly still able to flourish (and not be harmed), but we — the church — become a plausible community for our LGBTIQA+ neighbours to enter while exploring the truth-claims of the Gospel. We can’t do that while also publicly doing things that look committed to their harm instead.

This Bill has enormous capacity for overreach — if, as it is tested in real life, and that is demonstrably the case, there will be opportunities for legislation to be changed and challenged. What this Bill aims to do, though, is undo the damage the church has (and does) do to vulnerable people in our community because we can’t get our posture and message right on sexuality and the call of Jesus for all people who join his kingdom.

The war didn’t begin last week; and we’re not the victims

Are we Christians that blinded by our own ‘plight’ that we are utterly unable to comprehend the actions of others?

Are we that blind to how systemic and institutional stuff works that we think our not being complicit in particular actions means that we, as individuals, bear no responsibility for how people have acted in the name of our belief or institutions in the past?

It doesn’t feel, for most of us Christians, like we’ve been oppressors or haters, so it feels unjust to us to be hated and oppressed… but while we haven’t felt that way others have felt oppressed and hated in our name — and worse, in the name of Jesus. And how we behave now can either hurt or heal. And we’re picking the ‘hurt’ option.

Are we so tone deaf that we think now is the time for us to be sounding out doomsday scenarios and trying to turn the recently liberated into the new oppressors?

How do we think those recently liberated should behave in a moment of ascendency (or liberation)? What do we think their cause should be?

I’m reading post after post, think piece after think piece, about how Christians are now the victims, when we should be, in my opinion, convincing our culture that we are not perpetrators. We’re claiming to be the victims while a government body investigates our systemic failure when it comes to abuse; when our stocks are at an all time low because this Royal Commission follows years of revelations about members of the church behaving badly with the most vulnerable people in our care.

I’m reading about how the LGBTIQ+ community hates us despite claiming “love is love” from people who don’t understand that for decades this community has felt hated by us; whether through sins of omission — not speaking up about horrid laws and a culture that permits the persecution of members of that community — or because our teaching about sexuality was used to prop those laws and culture up and to demonise these neighbours as an ‘other’ more broken than your average Aussie. I read one conservative commentator this week who continues to insist on calling homosexuals ‘sodomites’… Here’s what Ezekiel says was at the heart of Sodom’s sin

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” — Ezekiel 16:49-50

At the moment this sounds more like the perception of ‘brand Christian’ in Australia than anyone who might oppose us. The sort of Christianity that sees us playing the victim rather than caring for victims.

I read a piece that claims ‘the hate campaign begins as #lovewins’… an utterly abominable and self centred misreading of history. Hate against the LGBTIQ+ community has been happening for years; this was, for them, a campaign to eradicate hate… hate that WE HAVE PERPETRATED.

“Let to be known that on the December 7, 2017 – the day in Australian Parliamentary history when “love won” – the hate campaign truly began. Yesterday, supporters of same-sex marriage took to Twitter to celebrate by tweeting, “Eat sh-t Lyle.” A reference to Lyle Shelton, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby.”

What utter trollop. The hate has been going on for years; this date might be the moment we start to feel it institutionally (from the government and culture), whereas, in the past, these institutions were acting in our interest.

Do we not understand that the LGBTIQ+ community has legitimate claims here; that they’ve been oppressed and hated — not just by Christians, but we weren’t exactly standing against it — and that they themselves saw marriage equality as one step in a long line of steps towards de-systematising this hatred. We might agree or disagree with this step, this solution, or other steps — but I don’t think we can, in the face of the evidence, disagree with the foundational premise.

LGBTIQ+ campaigners can legitimately claim to be campaigning against systemic hate even if we don’t agree with their means. Safe Schools is an anti-bullying campaign because LGBTIQ+ kids get bullied for being different. I know. I was, by omission, part of this in my public school. Safe Schools might adopt a means to achieve this end that I don’t love — I’m not sold on the queer/marxist agenda of eradicating any difference between people being the solution to this oppression.  We spent the SSM campaign trying to make it about Safe Schools and our opposition to it. We spent the campaign APPARENTLY ADVOCATING AGAINST AN ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN.

You know what that makes us look like?

BULLIES.

Bullies who are attached to an institution that has systemically ABUSED CHILDREN and COVERED UP THAT ABUSE.

Where’s our better option? Where’s an anti-bullying program from Christians that does the job better than Safe Schools? Put up or shut up.

I read a piece, celebrated by Christian conservatives on social media, that declared the ‘Rainbow-haters have declared war on no voters’...

And their fears are already being realised.

Within a day of the marriage bill being passed, an academic from the University of Technology Sydney was describing it as a “mandate to deliver… LGBTQI+-inclusive sexuality education” aka “Safe Schools” queer theory. And there was an online petition to strip tax-free charitable status from Shelton’s ACL.

As we saw overseas, LGBTQI vigilantes don’t stop when same-sex marriage becomes law. They want to hound into submission every last dissenter.

You know, ‘rainbow haters’ used to be a bit different. We’re talking about a community, who when they lived in Nazi Germany, we marked with pink triangles and exterminated… literally ‘hounded into submission’ and treated as dissenters… that’s some evocative imagery right there. We’re talking about that happening less than 70 years ago. On a whim I googled ‘set dog on gay man’ and was distressed but unsurprised to find this story about a POLICE OFFICER allegedly doing just that in England in 2016. Stories from other countries are apparently fair game in this space — we’re yet to have an Australian baker before the courts… Here in Australia we’re talking about a community who, for many years, could be murdered in Queensland and have that charge downgraded to manslaughter because of ‘gay panic’ — the idea that a gay person might be not hitting you but hitting on you was reason for self defence. We’re talking about a community who face a greater than average risk of suicide and a bunch of other mental health stuff. A community for whom an SBS feature on gay hate crimes reported:

“NSW now has a task force, Operation Parrabell, reviewing 88 deaths including 30 unsolved cases from the 1970s to the early 2000s as potential gay-hate murders, most of which weren’t treated as such at the time. Those 88 deaths are the worst of the tragedies.”

I read a piece that says this isn’t a ‘slippery slope’ but a precipice (it at least had the poetry of a CS Lewis analogy and a God who blows us back from over the edge). Look. Let’s talk about the slippery slope thing. The way the no campaign operated turned the postal survey into a postal survey on the rest of the agenda. It passed with a massive majority. The way to avoid things being a slippery slope, when people have a destination they are working towards, is to treat the pathway there as steps — and to offer a better pathway to a better destination at key junctions along the journey. Not to stand at the top and yell that it’s a long way down once you start. This has the added benefit of being more closely tied to reality where even those with a radical agenda see the process as involving steps, and same sex marriage being not the first, but part of a continuum (repealing and changing other laws that allowed violence against that community were also a step). Of course these steps build towards a destination and create a momentum that is harder to turn once you’re moving, but perhaps for the LGBTIQ+ activists it doesn’t feel like a slippery slope, but a long, uphill battle to push against the weight of systemic injustice and a culture of antipathy that has, at times, been fuelled by even the most well-meaning, loving, members of the church (not just those who proof text their hatred from Leviticus).

Let me be clear. It’s not hatred to disagree with somebody; I do believe that same sex sexual activity is sinful, much as I believe that watching porn is sinful, or sex outside of marriage is sinful, or selfish heterosexual sex in marriage is sinful.

And let me be clear. There are some people on the ‘yes’ side who hate Christians. I guess I’m just struggling to see why they don’t ALL hate Christians.

It’s Christianity that brings the ‘golden rule’ of treat others as you would have them treat you, a command to love your neighbours as you love yourself, and a crucified king to show you what sacrificial love for the ‘other’ looks like. This is the Christian ethic. The wisdom of the world is ‘do unto others’ what they have done for you; and ‘an eye for an eye’…

Let me be absolutely clear — I believe a better path for gay equality is found in Jesus. In finding your identity in him not in your sexual attraction; and letting him shape how you live. I believe the image of God, renovated in Jesus so that we live as ‘the image of Jesus’ in the world is a better source of dignity and equality. I believe we do have better and more imaginative things to offer in the realm of gay rights than legal or symbolic equality, though not lesser things. I also believe we’re not going to be heard on any of this until we deal with the baggage and the perception it has created of wielding power in our own interests for too long. We’ve been too caught up in the institutions of the state to the point that we can’t help but be accused of being complicit in injustices perpetrated by the state. We’ve also been infected by this love for power in a way that has stopped us calling sin sin, and led us to cover up oppression rather than give up power.

We’re reaping the cost, not just of the campaign, but of decades of institutional and community memory of our position on this issue.

You can doubt this reality all you want; but here’s three things to consider.

  1. The testimony of celibate (or straight married) same sex attracted brothers and sisters in Christ supports this narrative.
  2. The testimonies of real people in these stories supports this narrative; and you could corroborate this by asking your LGBTQI+ friends.
  3. Perception is reality. Even if these things aren’t true; this is the landscape on which the campaign for LGBTQI+ equality is being fought and changes established.

In the eyes of the watching world we are an oppressor and we’re now behaving exactly like a bully or abuser when they get caught out — projecting. Making this all ‘their problem’. It’s awful.

STOP IT.

We were tone deaf in the marriage debate about the ‘rights’ side of the argument and the importance of equality (and symbolism for establishing that equality) which meant our symbolic olive branches never appeased (civil unions anybody?). We’re becoming even more tone deaf as we operate as sore losers when society still perceives us as the powerful (and abusive) oppressors.

What does it look like for us to repent in dust and ashes. That’s what we should be doing. Not donning the war paint.