S
everal years back, i acquired chatting to a middle-aged gent at a celebration. For some reason, the dialogue got to the early-80s pop music combo
Haircut 100
, known with regards to their Arran sweaters, knickerbockers and fresh-faced grins. My personal new pal mentioned that he had lately sat behind the band’s artist, Nick Heyward, on an airplane, along with got great difficulty resisting the urge to stroke the nape of his still-boyish neck.
The discussion used within vein for quite a while. The silver-haired charmer was not simply homosexual: he had been effusively, dramatically, openly camp, packed with gossip and innuendo, usually lapsing into well-enunciated
polari
. Forgive the stereotypes, but I guessed he may end up being an actor, or even the manager of a louche people’ nightclub. Until, that will be, he glanced at his watch and revealed he’d better be going at some point eventually, because he previouslyn’t finished writing tomorrow’s sermon.
I remembered him once I check out the
marriage ceremony
(or “marriage ceremony”, if you prefer) recently executed for 2 male priests, Peter Cowell and David Lord. Quick condemnation came from certain normal suspects: the Archbishop of Uganda (is entire country nevertheless drawing from Private Eye’s picture of the title with
carnal misdemeanour
?); the Bishop of Winchester; and Sir Patrick Cormack MP, a guy for who, it appears, it’s completely 1955.
But what precisely disturbs these defenders of “standard values”? Gay priests have now been a fixture in the Church of England provided anyone can recall, from
Trevor Huddleston
(scourge of apartheid) to
Mervyn Stockwood
(scourge of Monty Python). And despite the Church’s hair-splitting difference that it is perhaps not homosexuals they will have an issue with, it really is “homosexual acts”, I do not imagine my personal reverend Haircut 100 lover was
virgo intacta
; neither, we believe, are large swathes associated with LGBT clergy and laity.
Also, everybody in the larger echelons of this chapel has actually identified relating to this permanently, but accomplished little. Let’s end up being clear: the removal of most of the homosexual priests through the Anglican communion would trigger a serious staffing lack; while they’re best off as compared to Roman Catholic chapel, which could most likely vanish if the Hail Marys was required to find renewable work.
The point that provides Archbishop of Uganda with his co-outraged spiralling into rentaquote mode isn’t that these people are homosexual; and on occasion even that they elect to express that gayness via the removal of each other’s vestments. Seriously, if you do not like gay people, the reason why join an organisation where in fact the up on senior administrators all put on mauve frocks?
No, their unique issue is that homosexual Anglicans like Peter Cowell and David Lord tend to be truthful and open about their sex, not only in the cliquish sectors in the church hierarchy, but with their parishioners and to the broader globe. And a good thing too. To accomplish usually could well be a lie. As I remember, Jesus didn’t have a lot of time for liars, dissemblers and hypocrites: ”
whited sepulchres
“, the guy called them. As specific from homosexuality, about that he mentioned bugger all, in the event that you’ll pardon the expression.
It is not the bluster and execration for the conservatives which is therefore depressing: its their particular collective self-delusion; their own la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you denial of reality. As Nick Heyward so cogently argued, “it affects to battle with lies that curve my personal brain”. Oo-er, vicar.
