May 17
Why do we need a worldwide day to defend LGBT rights? At least 81 countries in the world criminalize same sex relationships. This means that 40% of the world population (or 2.8 billion people) are not free to choose who they love. Millions of homosexual and bisexual people live in a constant state of fear. In 10 countries, the death …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2016/05/17/watch-whywefight-un-free-equal-video-marking-idahot2016/
May 17
In Interfaith Week, November 2015, the LGBT Foundation in Manchester held an event called ‘Believing In LGBT Young People‘, which was the inspiration for the Divine Love event I facilitated in Liverpool in LGBT History Month this February. At this event I met a young playwright and director who was promoting her new play, One Flesh, …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2016/05/17/one-flesh-the-play-lgbthm-review-pt-7/
Feb 20
‘It’s a sad, sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd.’ So sang Elton John 40 years ago – his lament for a lost relationship could have been written for the Church of England this past month. At the first full meeting of its governing body this year, the General Synod met this week to …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2016/02/20/sorry-seems-to-be-the-hardest-word-on-the-cofes-apology-to-lgbti-christians/
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/
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/
Sep 22
ON US TV today (Sept. 22), the clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to ANY couple because she didn’t believe in same sex marriage has said what hurts her most about how she has been treated since she defied the Supreme Court ruling on marriage in June – being called ‘a hypocrite’. Kim Davis …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/09/22/kim-davis-let-me-show-you-what-persecution-looks-like/
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 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/
Apr 14
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters. This was the aim of last week’s two-day conference Open Church: The church, sexuality, mission and the future hosted by Steve Chalke, Baptist minister and founder of international charity the Oasis Trust. Steve hit the headlines two years ago when he called for an ‘open conversation’ around same-sex relationships and …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/04/14/a-conversation-that-matters-openchurch2015-conference/
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