How to adopt a homophobe

My fellow blogger Stuart Hartill of Clinging to a Rock has passed on a nifty idea for Father’s Day, which is tomorrow. He was one of the recipients of an emailed request from John Becker of the US organisation Truth Wins Out (“Fighting anti-gay lies and the ex-gay myth”) about “adopting” a homophobic religious leader by making a donation to TWO in his (yes, it will usually be “his”) name.

“A few years ago,” writes Becker, “Father sat me down for the talk. ‘John,’ he said, ‘your voice is beautiful. Even so, it would be inappropriate to have you sing at the Cathedral anymore. I’ve been informed that you’re married to a man, and so your continued presence in this church would cause a scandal.’”

Married to a man? Utterly disgusting! Becker continues:

Not the talk I expected from Father. “Father,” of course, was how this particular anti-LGBT religious leader preferred to be addressed, and many still call him “father” today. As we approach Father’s Day, I’m thinking about this man, and about many others who promote religion-based bigotry against LGBT people while purporting to call themselves spiritual “fathers”.

For example, this week as momentum in New York surged toward the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, Archbishop Timothy Dolan compared allowing same-sex couples the freedom to marry with North Korean-style Communist dictatorship. Minneapolis-St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt used his bully pulpit last week to endorse a proposed anti-gay amendment that would write marriage discrimination into Minnesota’s constitution, throwing the scientifically-discredited “kids do best with a mother and a father” meme into the mix for good measure. And it’s not just Catholic “fathers” who engage in this type of spiritual violence – evangelical preacher Damon Thompson, who claims on his website that he “fathers spiritual sons and daughters”, spews disgustingly vile anti-gay hate speech, all in the name of Jesus.

I’ve got a challenge for you: this Father’s Day, “adopt” an anti-LGBT religious leader by making a tax-deductible donation of any amount, in his honor, to Truth Wins Out. After you donate, email me at john@truthwinsout.org with his name and location, and I’ll send an email to your adopted Pop to let him know about the thoughtful gift you made on his behalf to fight anti-LGBT religious extremism. (You can even make your donation anonymous!) It’s a surefire way to bring a Father’s Day smile to Pop’s face.

What a good idea! You could extend it, of course, by simply doing it yourself if you fancied donating to, say, a UK organisation. Just make the donation and write to the bigot in question and say, “You’ll be dead chuffed to know that I’ve made a donation in your name to Gays R Us” (or whatever).

Talking of Father’s Day, sorry, Dad. I sent you a card the other day and forgot to put a stamp on the envelope.

Poor Mr Armitage, somewhere in the Northwest of England, will be facing a surcharge.

Oops! I’m in for a bollocking.

Cries for help

The number of boys calling the charity ChildLine with worries about their sexuality has more than trebled in the last five years, with many concerned about coming out, Pink News reports.

“In 2007/08, 3,510 calls from boys (six per cent) were about their sexuality, compared with only one per cent of calls from girls,” the online news source says, adding, “Although the total number of boys calling the line has doubled, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) says calls about sexuality have still risen proportionately to more than three times the amount five years ago.”

Now why should anyone – assuming they are – be surprised that jibes about sexuality are causing young people to be worried about their sexuality?

While there are adults, who ought to know better, bleating about how evil it is to be gay – adults in organisations such as the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, mosques and what have you – is there any wonder that boys are going to be made to feel like shit?

But that’s religion for you.

Raising questions about charities

Guest post by Stuart Hartill

I had a positively surreal experience recently. In effect, I was barred from the local branch AGM of Amnesty International for exercising the right to free speech.

It happened because our Amnesty group meets in the One World Centre, which started as a joint initiative by local campaign groups (Oxfam, Amnesty, Friends of the Earth, etc.).

It appears an ideal “rainbow coalition”, but sadly the involved groups are dominated by Christians who can’t see how a crossover between church and “secular” community work shuts out non-churchgoers. They also assume that membership of one group implies support of all, which rules out critical discussion of individual organisations or policies (e.g. Tearfund or CAFOD).

Another problem is the obsession with “positive thinking”. The OWC have a bit of a party line on this, which has a knock-on effect on our Amnesty campaigning. Their staff only like lightweight, uncontroversial cases – no politicos, no LGBTs, nobody who has been tortured, nobody facing execution. That would be “negative” and “might put the public off”.

The other irony is that, when another secular committee member stepped down, I briefly joined the OWC management committee myself to try to broaden the representative views. But I quickly felt I was there to rubberstamp predecided policies, not ask questions or put other views. After being unable to interrupt the “feel-good” chatter and ask even basic questions at one “blue-sky thinking” all-dayer and another rambling evening meeting, I just gave up.

But I do raise those questions, among many others, on my blog – questions about dubious evangelical activity in Africa, or concerns of East European friends and relatives about the breakdown of civil society and the public sector caused by interfering Western faith-based charities.

It seems obvious to me to ask who vets overseas-aid applications and how. Who ensures our government makes informed decisions, rather than secretive deals with lobbyists?

It is also obvious to suggest people check out “charities” properly instead of dropping guilt money that might subsidise hate into a tin.

Sadly, the OWC seem to take this as an insult, rather than an honest attempt to set people thinking about world issues. So when, as publicist for the Amnesty group, I circulated notice of the AGM the OWC staff refused to open the building if I attended. Our treasurer (another OWC committee member) was told to collect the key beforehand and put it through the letterbox afterwards.

I learnt all this via a phone call from the chairman two days before the AGM. By implication, the price of future cooperation with the OWC was that I should make a 70-mile round trip merely to be told to apologise and censor myself over a matter that doesn’t even involve Amnesty, which isn’t a charity and never takes funds from any government. I see little enough of my family, so I took a very pleasant “day off” with my wife and daughter instead.

But, as an Amnesty member who on principle always campaigns against censorship of evangelical dingbats I would cross the road to avoid in person, I loved the irony.

Ten years on, but there's more to be done, says Matthew's mom

The mother of the murdered Wyoming University student Matthew Shepard says a lot remains to be done to rid the world of gay hate.

Judy Shepard (pictured) has issued a statement to coincide with the tenth anniversary today of his death after he'd spent five days in a coma, for which two homophobic thugs are serving life sentences, one with no hope of parole. (See "Remembering Matthew".)

“It’s hard to believe that it has been ten years since Matthew’s death,” says Shepard, who is also executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

“So much has changed yet so much remains the same. I want to thank all of the individuals and organizations that have given us the Foundation and our family their unwavering support."

The rest of her statement reads:

Our work is far from over. I don’t mean the work of the Foundation only, I mean the work we all need to do at a personal level. We need to continue talking to our friends, families and co-workers.

Unless we are honest about who we are and are able to share with those who love us what our lives are like, they will not know how to help us.

We need those allies in this struggle to achieve equality across the board to realize all of our civil rights.

Great advances have been made in changing people’s attitudes and eliminating ignorance about the gay community even in my wonderful state of Wyoming.

At least I thought so, until I read the readers’ comments following an article about the ten-year observance of Matt’s death in the Cheyenne, Wyoming, newspaper.

I understand that the readers who take the time to write in are doing so because they absolutely disagree with the article and those who do agree won’t bother to write comments.

However, it brought home to me how much work is left to do to make the world an accepting place. The level of ignorance is astounding.

The continuing belief that what happened to Matt was not a hate crime and the notion that “special people shouldn’t have special rights”, is beyond my comprehension.

The level of “hate” is frightening.

Our family and the Foundation staff are committed to doing all they can to ensure the message – “erase hate” – is one that is known to the community and its allies as well as those who are trying learn more about the Foundation and the LGBT community at large.

It is ignorance that ultimately results in hate, and that may escalate into physical violence. The only way to combat that ignorance is to educate and tell our stories.

We are all aware of how important this election cycle is to all of us. Please take the time to know the issues and what is at stake for the LGBT community. Share your stories with those who care about you. It is the only way they will know how to vote to support you.

The privilege of having the right to vote is also a responsibility. We must remember that we are not voting only for a new president but also for representatives at the local, county, state and national level.

Please vote and encourage everyone you know to vote. Apathy is unacceptable. We are at a crossroads in the movement and we need to show our support for those who support the LGBT community. We are all hoping the next ten years will be our time.

She ends by pointing her readers to the Foundation and the work it is doing: please visit:

http://www.matthewshepard.org/

and

http://www.matthewsplace.com/.

Remembering Matthew

It’s ten years to the day that Matthew Shepard was attacked by homophobic thugs near Laramie in Wyoming. He survived in a coma for five days. Then he died.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation continues to ensure that the name of Matthew Wayne Shepard – a student at the University of Wyoming – is remembered.

Shepard’s murder – for which two men are serving life, one without the chance of parole – brought the subject of hate crime to national and international attention, and led to legislation at both state and federal levels in the USA.

The Laramie Project is an award-winning play (on which a film was subsequently based) depicting his life and death, and among the venues it’s due to be seen are Napa Opera House in Napa Valley, CA, and the Woman’s Club in Minneapolis, both on 19 October.

The website says:

In observance of the ten years since the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, the Matthew Shepard Foundation launched an aggressive anti-hate campaign aimed at creating a movement of people working to lessen the impact of hate in society. Realizing the importance of this 10th year observance, Judy Shepard [Matthew’s mother], Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, launched the “Campaign to Erase Hate” by asking the crowd of more than 500 people to raise themselves to the power of ten and join with her in helping the Foundation fulfill its mission of erasing hate.

The overall goal of this new campaign is to equip individuals with the necessary tools to discuss and address hate in our society. These tools include personal webpages, resources on dealing with hateful speech and actions, monthly correspondence and most importantly, a way to invite ten others to join.

Paul Newman: supporter of gay rights – and Humanist?

I was a great fan of Paul Newman – the American Oscar-winning movie star who died at the weekend, aged 83 – and not just for his acting ability. I found his blond, blue-eyed ruggedness extremely attractive.

He is probably best known for his role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but my favourites are the filmed versions of the gay playwright Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. In the former, Newman plays an alcoholic ex-footballer who, by implication, is gay. In the latter, the toy boy of a fading alcoholic female movie star played superbly by Geraldine Page.

Though clearly not gay himself (he enjoyed a long and happy marriage to the actress Joanne Woodward), I was delighted to learn from some quotations publicised on BBC Ceefax that he was a staunch support of gay rights:

I have never been able to understand attacks on the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being . . . By the time I get through with all the things I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it’s irrelevant.

I was also pleased and impressed by what seems his very Humanist stance on such subjects as charity and death.

On charity (and he was a very generous philanthropist), he says:

I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out. The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn’t hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity.

In 1982, he set up Newman’s Own – the premium food company that donates all its profits and royalties after taxes for educational and charitable purposes. It’s motto reads:

Shameless exploitation in pursuit of the Common Good.

On death, he had this to say:

I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life and tried to extend himself as a human being.

Oi! Where's our dosh?

Parishioners in the Liverpool area are asking where the hundreds of thousands of pounds they've donated to the Catholic Church for repairs to a building has disappeared to.

According to Liverpool's Daily Post, a pressure group called SOUL (Save Our Unique Landmark) was set up to save "the renowned SS Peter and Paul’s church in Wirral", but it has now "called for an investigation into church leaders by the Charity Commission. The campaigners say they have donated hundreds of thousands of pounds through Gift Aid – which allows the church to reclaim tax on the money – but that money has not been spent as they believed it would be, such as on routine maintenance."

Catholic authorities are refusing to say where the money has gone, saying there's nothing to add to the bishop's announcement that the church will be closed, but the Charity Commission has said it will investigate.

SOUL says the building has been left without key repairs being carried out for at least ten years, as Catholic authorities prepared to find a way to close it.

SOUL's chairman Frank McGowan has written to the Charity Commission, saying, “We the parishioners accept that the Trustees may decide to change their policy in regard to the maintenance and repair of a building that is under their care in the trust.

“However, we do not accept that, when such a decision impinges on the interests of our parishioners, the Trustees have a right to keep such a decision secret.”

If any decency is to be shown at all, the church should either be preserved with the money, as an interesting building, or the money should be given back. When you give under the impression that your dosh is going to pay for A, you don't want to find suddenly that it's going to pay for B.

Catholics say pulling out is best option

The Catholic Church would rather not help kids get loving homes than comply with a law that provides equality for people of different sexual orientations. Yes, they're so bound up with matters of sex that they lose sight of the more charitable role that Christians claim it is their mission to fulfil.

A piece in the Mail on Sunday says the Catholic Church is pulling out of three of its top adoption agencies because "it cannot comply with Labour's new gay equality laws".

The Catholic Church will, it says, "this week cut its ties with the Surrey-based Catholic Children’s Society, one of the biggest in the country covering much of the South-East. The dioceses of Nottingham and Northampton have also decided to pull out of their agencies."

The Mail on Sunday says insiders believe that "the Catholic Children’s Society for the dioceses of Arundel and Brighton, Southwark and Portsmouth will this week agree plans to cut its ties with the Church and be renamed the Cabrini Children’s Society". It doesn't explain the mechanism by which that will impact on the agencies, but we assume funding will be hit.

The former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith (pictured) is calling it a tragedy. "We are taking the ethos out of these adoption agencies and leaving them with a crisis, all because the government wouldn’t listen," he says.

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Listening and leading

After large local election losses, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said his job was to listen and to lead. That is almost a contradiction in terms. Leaders lead and others follow. Someone who only goes where he thinks his followers want to go is no leader.

When he was London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone listened to the wrong advisers. They attacked the Pink Triangle Trust for publishing something they did not like, and threatened to refer it to the Race Relations Board. I shall not be sorry to see the back of such advisers now that there is a new mayor in London.

The Pink Triangle Trust is a charity and acts responsibly as such.

The committee of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association is listening and leading, or so it says. Like Ken Livingstone, it is listening to the wrong people and leading in the wrong direction in wanting to become a charity.

Will it now take note of the likelihood of a government with a different view of the role of charities?

I doubt it. It wants to surrender its freedom of action in exchange for a dubious status and at some cost. Its freedom is something it will not be able to get back.

Welcome to the blog

Pink Triangle is a new blog, set up in March 2008 by the Pink Triangle Trust. The PTT was launched as a charity (number 1015629) in the UK in 1992 with the aim of educating lesbian and gay people about aspects of Humanism, while alerting Humanists to those things that affect homosexuals. This blog is its new forum.

While all the views here may not necessarily reflect the policies of the PTT, and shouldn't be taken to do so, there will, we hope, be lively discussion concerning the issues raised above, and wider ones, too, concerning gays and lesbians and a life that doesn't have to include religion.

So we'll be posting news and comment concerning matters that affect the LGB community and humanists and secularists, with comment if appropriate, and hope you'll join in the discussion in the comments area.

You can find out more about the PTT on its website.

Welcome aboard, and we hope to hear more from you soon.