gay Archives - Page 2 of 13 - What is in Kelvin's Head?

This article first appeared at the STV news website.

Over the weekend, I had the kind of birthday that is impossible to ignore.

The big round 50 is one of those things that need to be marked somehow. That’s certainly what members of my congregation seemed to think and I found myself whirling and birling round my church at a birthday ceilidh on Friday night and then being presented with a cake and a card and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to You at the end of the Sung Eucharist on Sunday morning.

Those who organised this staggered up the aisle after the last hymn carrying the largest, stickiest and most colourful cake they had been able to procure in all of Glasgow.

Not content with an off-the-peg cake, they had decided to go for something a bit more made to measure; something a bit more personal. And so, acknowledging my role as a gay rights activist as well as someone who runs a cathedral congregation, they appeared with a cake bearing a joyfully garish rainbow.

It was my gay cake moment.

Je suis le #gaycake.

But what if those involved in the production of my cake had refused? What if they had been allowed to say no to producing such a cake for an LGBT-identified church leader?

There would have been two obvious consequences. Firstly, I might have woken up on Monday morning a little slimmer, which would have been no bad thing. But secondly, I would have woken up on Monday morning back in the days when I could be discriminated against by those providing goods and services.

Now, a cake seems a trivial matter and a cake such as the one that all the fuss is about in Northern Ireland even more so as it bears the images of a couple of Muppets. However, discrimination is a serious business and every little moment where one is treated as less than someone else in society adds up.

I don’t want to go back to the bad old days when people could refuse to serve you based on their perception of your sexuality (or any other protected characteristic).

I’m sure the gay cake case has been determined correctly by the courts in Northern Ireland, for if the judgment had gone otherwise then the legislation which protects people from prejudice in their daily life would not be worth the vellum it is written on.

Many people are now asking whether there should be a conscience clause to “protect” people from having to provide goods and services to people whom they do not wish to do business with.

Such a clause would mean the effective repeal of legislation that enables me as a gay man to do business in the world in the same way as a straight person. It means that you can’t charge more for a service to a woman than you do a man (or vice versa). It means that you can’t refuse to have a black couple in your B&B because you don’t want “people like that” under your roof.

We must remember through all this debate that racism was justified for decades on religious grounds.

I find it puzzling that some who would be appalled at religious views being used to justify racist actions seem to think that religious views are a legitimate reason for someone opting out of identical legislation preventing discrimination against those of us who are gay.

Actually, saying I find it puzzling is a bit of a euphemism. In truth, I find it terrifying.

It is almost as though a nice white “Christian” heterosexual couple could never be the perpetrators of prejudice.

If gay people are going to be able to live in a world where they are not discriminated against then godly Christians don’t get to choose not to have that law themselves.

The views of Daniel and Amy McArthur, the owners of Ashers bakery in Northern Ireland which was sued because they refused to provide a cake supporting equal marriage are worth considering for a moment.

Their position is clear. As Bible-believing Christians they feel they simply have no alternative but to refuse to make a cake that contradicts their belief that same-sex marriage is wicked.

Clearly not all Christians hold to these views. Those who do hold them usually depend on a misreading of a couple of verses from the New Testament epistle to the Romans.

The trouble is, the epistle to the Romans has rather a lot to say about living under the civil law.

Why do the McArthurs take a fundamentalist line in relation to verses in Romans 1 that are perceived to be about same-sex couples yet seem to completely disregard Romans 13 where St Paul says:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement.”

And how, in heaven’s name, can you refuse to bake a cake you don’t agree with in the name of a Saviour who said, “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well”?

If the McArthurs wanted to be Christian about that cake, they would have offered a bonus dollop of fresh cream on the side.

The gay cake row is not a clash of rights between the gays and the Christians – plenty of us fit into both categories in any case.

Gay people have a right not to be discriminated against in shops but crucially the same law gives the same right to Christians. If a Christian wants to go into a shop and order a cake then gay owners can’t discriminate against them on the grounds of religion.

The point of all this is not that gay people are privileged in the law; they are not. The point is that customers, all customers, are protected from being discriminated against due to their sexuality or their religion or indeed a number of other categories too. This isn’t about gay people having more privileges than religious people – it is about everyone having the same rights.

Neither is this about limiting free speech. A bizarre argument has been put forward by Peter Tatchell suggesting that this case means that bakers will be forced to write anything that anyone asks for on cakes no matter how offensive. He has raised the suggestion that printers could be forced to print cartoons of Mohamed or that Jewish printers could be forced to print the words of Holocaust deniers.

This is palpably nonsense and, unusually for Tatchell whose views are always worth considering, a complete misunderstanding of the legal point on which this case turns. The cake should have been made because refusing to do so discriminated against someone in one of the protected characteristics that the law quite rightly demands are not used as justification for prejudicial treatment. The courts have simply not determined that bakers have to print anything that people ask them to print on a cake.

Being a Holocaust denier is not a characteristic protected by the law. Being anti-Muslim is not a characteristic protected by the law.

Bakers will not be forced to make cakes with swastikas on them because being a Nazi is not a characteristic protected by law and isn’t going to become so any time soon.

The protected characteristics are easy enough to understand when you list them. You can’t discriminate on the grounds of someone’s age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership status, and pregnancy or maternity.

Anything else, you can turn down just because it suits you.

You can’t refuse to bake a cake because your customers want it to say, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus” on the grounds that you happen to be a queer atheist. You can’t refuse to have a Christian couple staying in your bed and breakfast because you happen to be a pagan. That is right and proper. And you can’t refuse to produce a pro-gay cake nor refuse a gay couple a bed in a B&B. And that’s right too.

These rights are what we need for a good society to flourish.

People sometimes remember the kind of signs that used to appear outside premises before various anti-discrimination laws were passed.

“No Irish, no blacks, no dogs” is one famous example of appalling discrimination.

Those in Northern Ireland need to remember that these laws now protect us all.

No exceptions.

First of all, we need to give some cheers to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He was asked some great questions about the Usual Topic this week in an interview and he gave some great answers.

The interviewer was Michael Gove and the interview appeared in the Spectator.

The crucial bit is this:

It would be a challenge for any Archbishop of Canterbury to accommodate both the concerns of the traditionalists and the evolving views of the rest of British society. But when I ask this, Archbishop of Canterbury he doesn’t prevaricate.

If one of his own children were to be gay and fell in love with another person of the same sex, and asked his blessing, how would he react? ‘Would I pray for them together? You bet I would, absolutely. Would I pray with them together? If they wanted me to. If they had a civil service of marriage, would I attend? Of course I would.’

But, I challenged him, conscious of what many evangelicals believe, wouldn’t you say to them that while you love them, their relationship was sinful or inappropriate?

‘I would say, “I will always love you, full stop. End of sentence, end of paragraph.” Whatever they say, I will say I always love them.’

Listening to the archbishop, you get the sense that he is never calculating who might be offended, or attracted, by his words. He is following what he believes to be the path that Jesus has called him to take.

Those really are great answers and it is good to hear them coming from the leader of the Anglican Communion.

Now, I know what you are thinking – you’re thinking “Do we really have to give three cheers for someone simply behaving like a decent parent?”

Well, right now in the mire of the church’s troubles over sexuality, we do need to cheer him on when he says good things and we need to remember that it could be a very different message and a very different tone. Just the same week, a bishop in Greece has been reported to be lashing out at gay people and atheists, encouraged his ‘readers and followers to “spit on them” and “blacken them” with violence, stating that they are not humans’.

So, it really is three cheers for Archbishop Welby along with a cheer to Michael Gove for asking the right questions and getting the results printed. (And you are quite right, you are not going to hear me cheering Justin Welby and Michael Gove that often so make the most of it today).

One of the things that surprises me about the Church of England is that the bishops there are not subject to intrusive questions more often. I happen to think that Michael Gove’s questions were intrusive but necessary and reasonable. The Archbishop could have simply said, “Don’t bring my family and children into this” but it is to his credit that he didn’t. We need more of the same.

It is perhaps worth remembering in passing that one can sometimes experience ranting uncontrollable anger from bishops by asking questions about their own families (spouses, children, extended family members). I’ve experienced that and it isn’t at all pleasant. Rather oddly, some people think that they can pontificate (pun intended) about other people’s family life and personal relationships whilst their own should be utterly untouchable. It doesn’t work like that, of course, and Justin Welby was wise to give straightforward answers.

But what questions need to be asked of Justin Welby next?

Here’s my starter questions for anyone getting the chance to interview Justin Welby or any other bishops in the C of E at the moment. Or indeed those who can ask questions at Synods.

Do you think that you would take a different view on going to a same-sex wedding if it involved someone who had worked closely with you rather than involving a family member? (Clue: The follow up question is “But what if that person was also a relative? And anyway, in what ways should one behave differently towards one’s family and towards the household of God?”).
Do you think that there should be a different moral standard for clergy from the membership of the church? Should clergy be held to a higher moral standard. (Clue – if anyone is foolish enough to answer “Yes” the follow up is “so what exactly can lay people get away with that clergy can’t whilst still being in good standing in the church? – which areas of morality are different – just sex or other things too?”)
Do you believe sex outside marriage is always wrong? (Clue: the follow up is “What proportion of people whom you have married have you believed to be virgins?”)
What should a same-sex marriage involve? What should the ceremony be like? (Clue: the follow up is “Do you think that God should be involved in a marriage between two people?”)
Do you believe that people are turned off from exploring religious faith or attracted to religious faith by the church’s prevaricating over this question? (Clue: Next question is to ask what the proportion of anti-gay people at Holy Trinity, Brompton actually is – both leaders and members of the congregation. Note that the Archbishop is likely to know how this has been changing).

Christians cannot be allowed to discriminate against gays – #gaycake

The next five questions the Archbishop needs to be asked

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