In the long move towards family equality and the broader struggle for full acceptance and inclusion for the LGBT community, in society and in the church, some of our strongest allies are our parents. Sometimes, the stories behind this support…
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Church of Scotland Welcomes Queer Clergy
A fortnight ago, it was the Presbyterian Church of the USA that was in the move for removing barriers to the ordination and admission to seminaries of openly gay or lesbian clergy. This week, on the other side of the…
Gay Marriage : Battles Remain, the War is Won.
In Minnesota, voters will next year be casting their ballots on a proposal to write the existing ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution. Some Republican politicians will continue their fights to achieve similar bans in Iowa, Indiana, New…
Queer Families: Listen to the Children, Revisited.
In the heated debates around gay adoption, we often hear that it’s about the best interests of the children, not gay rights - but it’s the opponents of adoption who studiously avoid the evidence on what those best interests are,…
Are You Being Served?
“In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds – that which is their own and that which is false and…
Harvey Milk, Secular Gay Martyr & Saint
In California, today is officially recognised as “Harvey Milk Day“. The reasons for this secular honour are well-known, and recorded in several books and notable movies. In 1977, he became the first openly gay man elected to public office as…
Alcuin of Tours: Abbot, Saint, Pre-Renaissance Man - Celebrant of Male Love.
Alcuin was an Englishman who, after a period as monk and teacher at the great cathedral of York, served at the court of Charlemagne, whom he had met while returning from a visit to Rome. The Emperor recruited him…
Polling Evidence: The Gay Marriage Conundrum, for GOP and Catholic Bishops
In the latest in a series of polls confirming that US support for marriage equality is now the majority view, is increasing, and accelerating in that support, two new surveys just published carry within them serious warnings for Republican politicians…
Where have all the Shepherds gone?
Where have all the Shepherds gone? (with apologies to Pete Seeger) As so often happens when I’m preparing a post, current events break into the flow of my thoughts and somehow find their way into the post. Last week was…
Presbyterians discover support for gay equality in surprising places
One of the best things about the Presbyterian decision to remove the national barriers against gay or lesbian clergy (apart ftom the immediate and obvious on the clergy themselves), is the manner in which it came, with a series of…
