What is in Kelvin's Head?

What institutional homophobia looks like

19/04/2017

Here’s a quick example to illustrate what institutional homophobia looks like.

Yesterday the report of the Theological Forum of the Church of Scotland to the General Assembly was published and it deals with a number of issues of interest to LGBT people. (It is well worth a read).

Amongst the “deliverances” ie proposals to go to the General Assembly from that Forum is this very clear call for an apology to LGBT people.

The General Assembly:

Invite the Church to take stock of its history of discrimination at different levels and in different ways against gay people and to apologise individually and corporately and seek to do better.

What could be clearer? Should the General Assembly apologise for discrimination against gay people it would be a huge and significant moment and very much to be welcomed.

However, listen to what the Principal Clerk to the General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers of the Church of Scotland said on TV last night about the proposal:

“What the General Assembly is being asked to do this year is acknowledge and apologise for some of the harsh things that have been said on both sides of this debate over the last 20 to 30 years and I think the General Assembly will readily want to do that.”

This is very clearly not what the General Assembly is being asked to do.

This is a good example of institutional homophobia. In describing a call to apologise to gay people, gay people and their supporters are represented as being people making statements for 20 or 30 years which need to be apologised for.

I don’t believe that John Chalmers is a homophobe. Just the opposite. I’m quite sure that he is charming to gay people and I suspect he wants the church to accept gay people. However, put in a public position to explain a proposal to apologise for discrimination he gets it very wrong.

I have no doubt that there are huge institutional pressures on him over this issue and that is why he speaks as he does.

However, this looks to me like a very clear example of what institutional homophobia looks like. Institutional homophobia seems to come most often from people who are personally supportive of those of us who are gay.

Ironically, this is the kind of thing that needs to be apologised for.

We have it in our church too.

I find that people don’t like me pointing it out.

20 responses to “Becoming a Welcoming Cathedral”

Meg Rosenfeld

08/11/2014

My husband and I became members of All Saints Parish, San Francisco not long after our first experience attending Sunday Mass in that charming little church in the notorious Haight-Ashbury district. At that time we’d been members for over 20 years of a parish in another diocese, but were beginning to stay in San Francisco on weekends. What inspired us to join All Saints as members was the receipt of a simple hand-written letter from the rector some two or three days later, saying it had been a pleasure to have us there and hoping we would come again. Neither of us had ever had such an experience in any church we’d attended. We were absolutely amazed (in a positive way!) and made up our minds then and there that we would, indeed, go back. Mind you, we were also welcomed by the official greeters, urged to come to coffee hour, and approached at coffee hour with friendly overtures from the regulars–which is not always the case in Episcopal churches, at least in California. I guess it was just the right balance between friendliness and respect for one’s privacy. In any event, we are still at All Saints, almost 20 years later, up to our ears in choir, committees, and activities. To me, it was the letter from the rector which did the trick. He (an introvert like myself) wasn’t too busy to acknowledge new people, and in a way which was totally unthreatening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/11/2014
  
  Thanks Meg – that’s a great story.
  
  Reply
Andrew Connor

08/11/2014

I go to a church which gets the coffee just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which gets the welcome team just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which denies that I was born gay and have chosen to love my same see partner whom I am not allowed to celebrate with. You see? I don’t feel welcome.
The homilies never include such exclusion. Never did they mention my being part of the Us of the parish though.
We have regular celebrations of love but not mine.
Many speak of going home to love one another and others exhort us to reach out and love the stranger. But I am in the midst of you and m only loves if I deny my own self.
There is indeed much still to do.
Welcome in our Church? Discuss.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/11/2014
  
  I know Andrew. I know it all too well. And I know that the ease with which these loves can be spoken of here in St Mary’s in pulpit and pew is tragically remarkable in its rarity.
  
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Father Ron Smith

08/11/2014

Bravo, Kelvin. I always feel that we in the Church are standing in the place of Christ – who welcomes all. Agape, Fr. Ron, ACANZP

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Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

09/11/2014

Strangely enough about 1 hour before you posted this, I had been in a meeting in which one of the subjects discussed was getting more people to come to the church. The comments were full of “what can we do” I know that unless someone is willing to do outreach work nothing changes. I feel that as the church, St James the great, in Dingwall, will be having an open day when the refurbishment is complete, an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of the church.
I have taken on board the difficulties of being welcoming and at the same time not being separate, as you put it us and them. I have had experience of being both, part of a group and the new face

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Janet Koch

12/11/2014

conscientize?

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