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.

10 responses to “It was 30 years ago today…”

Meg Rosenfeld

11/11/2022

Alas, I can’t remember exactly when it became possible for women to be come priests in the
Episcopal Church of the United States of America, but I remember very well the first ones in our parish church in Los Gatos, California and, later, in Santa Rosa. It was a very triumphant time!

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1. Sr Alison Joy Whybrow
  
  12/11/2022
  
  The Canon in the American Episcopal Church passed in 1976 and went into effect on January 1st 1977.
  Sr Alison Joy OSB
  
  Reply
  1. Mg Rosenfeld
    
    12/11/2022
    
    Thanks! I hope to remember those dates now.
    
    Reply
2. Tim Chesterton
  
  14/11/2022
  
  In Canada women began to be ordained as deacons in 1969 and as priests in 1976.
  
  Reply
Peggy Brewer

11/11/2022

Heartfelt testament concerning the importance/necessity of inclusion as our Lord Jesus Christ commanded!

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Bob King

12/11/2022

I remember the day so
well !
I was at Salisbury and Wells Theological College, preparing to leave to be Ordained in Hereford Cathedral, preparing for the closure of the College and praying with passion and fear that the vote in Synod would be YES 🙏🙏
All three things happened as we know, joy and sadness mingled down.

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Helen King

12/11/2022

Yes, all of this, especially “There were cruelties along the way. There was a great deal of abuse along the way”

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1. Anne
  
  18/11/2022
  
  And, sadly, there still is.
  
  Reply
John N Wall

12/11/2022

The first women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were the “Philadelphia Eleven,” ordained on July 29, 1974, by three bishops who claimed that “obedience to the Spirit” justified their action. After a second ordination of women, all their ordinations were deemed by the national church to be “irregular but valid.” As a previous correspondent noted, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church officially authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood, a decision that went into effect on the first of January in 1977.

Back to Glossary

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Keith Battarbee

13/11/2022

On the opposite side to the still continuing antipathies in some (diminishing) quarters to women priests : my wife, who is a priest, was driving today when we got stuck waiting our turn to join the main flow of cars. A driver in the main queue – eastern European, almost certainly – spotted my wife’s collar, crossed himself; and when we didn’t get the message, grinned broadly, crossed himself again, and waved us energetically into the traffic flow in front of him.

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