I am now a co-administrator of the facebook group, Catholics for Gay Rights. Members are a diverse bunch, with a range of opinions and sharing some useful thoughts and links. Earlier this week I shared an extract and link to Michael Carden’s thoughts on homophobia and bible translation. Here’s a thought from a new group member, Gary Campbell:

I’ll share a thought, for what it’s worth. I’d started regular Mass attendance after a number of years, but was feeling pretty undervalued. Not by my parish, or most of the priests I have met in my city, but by the bishops and the guy in the pointy hat in Rome. They think gays should suffer in silence. Then I was thinking about Jesus. I was thinking about how he didn’t have a partner. And a thought just dropped into my head. He did that not to sanctify celibacy, as many people think, but to show himself above and beyond considerations of sexuality and gender. In other words, he was saying, ‘I don’t endorse heteroxexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transexuality or asexuality to the prejudice of the other. You’re all my brothers and sisters as I made you’. I find that idea so consoling.

My colleagues as administrators are Steven Lovatt, Michael Carden, and Marie-Louise Thurton, a Canadian. Steven is an English, very traditional Catholic, who runs “Pharsea’s World / Pharsea’s Home Page“, and “Faithful to the Truth” which has a pro-gay, traditionalist Catholic perspective. Michael is an Australian biblical scholar whose contributions to “The Queer Bible Commentary” I greatly admire, and blogs about “Bible, Religion, Society, Sexuality, Politics” at Jottings. Marie-Louise is a Canadian, who had an interesting response to the furore over Cardinal George and his offensive comparison of some LGBT activists and the KKK: blending traditional Catholicism with modern technology, she set up a facebook page to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for Cardinal George. (The much-publicized apology followed almost immediately).

The group is currently at 558 members. How soon can we reach 1000? Take a look, and consider joining.