Dec 05
IT’S TEN YEARS this month since the first civil partnerships for same-sex couples in the UK. The first couple to benefit from the new legal recognition for their relationship were Chris Cramp and Matthew Roche from West Sussex, on 5th December 2005. Yet when images from the first UK civil partnerships appear in the media …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/12/05/a-momentous-decade-reflecting-on-ten-years-of-uk-civil-partnerships/
Nov 20
THIS WEEK in England there is an interesting combination of commemorations – Anti-Bullying Week, Interfaith Week, and Trans* Awareness Week, culminating today in Trans* Day of Remembrance (TDOR). I have been at four events in the past week to mark these campaigns: ‘An All Embracing Faith’ – Keynote speech by Ruth Hunt, CEO of Stonewall …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/11/20/makingnoise-antibullying-interfaith-tdor/
Oct 26
WHAT IS a conversation if it’s not shared? Talking to myself? Enjoying the sound of my own voice? Only hearing views I agree with? This odd phrase was chosen by the Church of England to describe its facilitated listening process to seek some reconciliation, or at least ‘good disagreement’ over diverse views on sexuality and same-sex …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/10/26/what-is-a-shared-conversation/
Oct 18
HATE CRIME AWARENESS WEEK has just ended in the UK. The Home Office release the latest statistics on hate crime, which showed that: the number of hate crimes (motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity) reported in England & Wales was up 18% on the previous year (52,528 in 2014/15, 44,471 in …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/10/18/lgbt-hate-crimes-in-uk-more-likely-to-be-violent/
Aug 04
*Queer – originally meaning odd, used as a term of homophobic abuse, reclaimed by activists as a defiant act of liberation, now interpreted to mean radical transgression of norms – see my comments on Keith Sharpe’s book The Gay Gospels below. IT’S BEEN an extraordinary couple of weeks since my last post about the Bishop of …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/08/04/a-very-queer-time/
Jul 20
A CHRISTIAN community which warmly welcomes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people, their friends and family, celebrated its seventh anniversary on Sunday 19th July, with the Bishop of Liverpool as their guest. The inclusive service, known as ‘Open Table’, meets on the third Sunday of each month at St Bride’s Anglican Church on Percy …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/07/20/bishop-shares-absolute-welcome-with-lgbt-christians/
Jul 12
IT’S LATE – my phone rings. It’s someone I haven’t heard from in a while. I answer. His greeting is warm, but it sounds like he’s been drinking. He chats about Facebook – he says he doesn’t use it much but he’s logged in and noticed the rainbow filter on my profile picture, the only …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/07/12/rainbow-profile-pictures-sex-offenders-homophobia-not-satire/
Jun 27
THIS SUNDAY is the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, heralded as the birth of the international LGBT rights movement. Pride marches in cities across the world, including New York and London, are taking place this weekend to commemorate the struggle for equality that began in New York’s Stonewall Inn in the early hours of June …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/06/27/pride-opposite-of-prejudice/
May 16
In at least 76 countries around the world, loving someone of the same sex is illegal and, in ten countries, it is even punishable by death. In many more countries citizens are denied their right to live as their preferred gender identity. As well as legal discriminations, social homophobia, biphobia and transphobia daily serve to deny millions …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/05/16/watch-united-nations-free-equal-campaign-video-marking-idahot2015/
Apr 25
LAST WEEKEND, director of Changing Attitude Colin Coward came to our church to give a series of reflections inspired by twenty years working towards a more inclusive church around the world. Colin is an Anglican priest who originally trained as an architect and subsequently as a psychotherapist. He ministered for 19 years in inner-city parishes. …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/04/25/a-coward-with-courage-challenging-the-church-changing-our-image-of-god/
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