What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • From Criminality to Equality

    I think this is one of the moments in the debates on marriage where there’s more wisdom to be heard in one speech made well than in acres of newsprint trying to analyse the vote in the House of Commons last night.

    Here’s David Lammy giving it his all.

    Let me speak frankly.

    “Separate but equal” is a fraud.

    “Separate but equal” is the language that tried to push Rosa Parks to the back of the bus.

    “Separate but equal” is the motif that determined that black and white could not possibly drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same table or use the same toilets.

    “Separate but equal” are the words that justified sending black children to different schools from their white peers – schools that would fail them and condemn them to a life of poverty.

    It is an excerpt from the phrasebook of the segregationists and the racists.

    It is the same statement, the same ideas and the same delusion that we borrowed in this country to say that women could vote – but not until they were 30.

    It is the same naivety that gave made my dad a citizen in 1956 but refused to condemn the landlords that proclaimed “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”.

    It entrenched who we were, who our friends could be and what our lives could become.

    This was not “Separate but equal” but “Separate AND discriminated”,

    “Separate AND oppressed”.

    “Separate AND browbeaten”.

    “Separate AND subjugated”.

    Separate is NOT equal, so let us be rid of it.

    Because as long as there is one rule for us and another for them, we allow the barriers to acceptance to stand unchallenged.

    As long as our statute books suggest that the love between two men or two women is unworthy of being recognised through marriage, we allow the rot of homophobia to fester.

    And then again at the end:

    The Jesus I know was born a refugee, illegitimate, with a death warrant on his name in a barn among animals. He would stand up for minorities. That is why it is right for people of religious convictions to stand up for this bill.

    There’s a longer version of the speech (which he would have given if he had been given more time) on his website.

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3 responses to “Power needs to be baptised by love”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    A very good and thought-provoking sermon. I’ve always thought of the Ethiopian eunuch as a man of great power and authority, and of great learning and devotion too, which points me to your third interpretation. But what startles me about the story – partly because of my thinking of the eunuch as someone of great power and authority compared to Philip, and partly because of a tendency on my part to be dogma-bound – is the sheer simplicity of how Philip welcomes him into the Church.

    There is no complicated initiation process. There are no doctrinal tests. The eunuch sees water, and asks Philip in a businesslike way if there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be baptised. Philip’s answer couldn’t be more direct and straightforward: “If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptised.” And the eunuch’s response couldn’t be more direct and straightforward either: no lengthy creed, no question and answer interrogation, but simply, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

    No doubt the eunuch continued his studies after his baptism, being that sort of man. But in a complicated world and (sometimes) a complicated Church I often turn to this passage for reassurance that it needn’t always be so.

    Reply
    1. Father Ron Smith Avatar
      Father Ron Smith

      Thank you, Father Kelvin. What a lovely and refreshing new insight into the identity and provenance of the ethiopian Eunuch! Philip’s acceptance and Baptism of the Eunuch reflects the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:122, where he speaks of 3 types of eunuch; made so by others (the Ethiopian, castrati); those who become so for the sake of the Kingdom (monks, nuns, celibate clergy);
      and then, of course; those so ‘from their mother’s womb’ (intrinsic Gays).

      Reply
  2. Aleks Avatar
    Aleks

    Really profound. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

    Reply

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