So I
thought I would take some time out from planning my next meteorological strike
on the straights and have a break from orchestrating genocide in Africa to put
my rainbow tainted fingers to the keyboard… again… well Call the Midwife and
Musketeers has finished!
I do have
to wonder what one has to do to get through to some folks – so let’s get the
weather out of the way once again – Gay people do not control the weather, and
seriously if we did, it would be rainbows and sparkles not sand, rain, fog and
gloom – frankly dahlings it just wouldn’t look good.
Now on to
the more serious note within this missive. Gay people are not responsible for
the killing of African people. Indeed as astonishing as some may find this –
some Africans are gay, I know what a shock! I have had simultaneously the
delight and despair of working in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Working
within and for the gay communities as they campaign for access to HIV/AIDS
medication, for policing agencies to recognise and protect their vulnerabilities
and to dare to ask the mainstream churches
and theological colleges to engage with liberation theology that would
be transformative for the lives of many.
I can hand
on heart say that at no point on my travels to this most beautiful continent
did I orchestrate slaughter, ethnic cleansing or even engage in hunting safari
animals. I witnessed and received love and hospitality from people who had
nothing to give and was ignored by those who wore the clerical attire of the
Anglican communion.
What I further
witnessed in Africa during my visits there was the fear of those who lived in
hiding, I heard the stories of those beaten and victims of sexual violence
because of their sexuality, and in some cases because of their gender. What I
witnessed and heard testimony of was of violence and brutality metered out by
majorities against minority groups of all sorts.
When I
served in Bosnia during the genocide, I again watched and saw the result of
inhumanity inflicted by humankind. I do not recall sexuality being an issue in
the atrocities we witnessed. I recall it being brutal and life altering for
those of us who served there. It was there I first became aware that in this
flawed world of ours there are people and groups of people for whom violence
and terrible destruction is an option.
Volf, a
Croatian theologian, writing about his experience of the war in his country, in
the book Exclusion and Embrace, wrote ““Most wars feed on hate, and the masters of war
know how to manufacture it well. It is the proportions of the Balkan hate and
its rawness right there on the fringes of what some thought to be civilised
Europe that causes us to stagger.”
This statement, I guess is a
grown up way of saying what I am trying to articulate in the paragraph above
it. People who are gay and in love are not the cause of violence in Africa or
elsewhere. People are the cause of violence across the world. For the
Archbishop of Canterbury to infer that gay marriage will cause death and
slaughter of Christians, is in my humble uneducated opinion a deeply offensive
and quite simply naïve standpoint.
Gustavo
Gutierrez cited in the Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology states that,
“liberation theology has its origins in the reality of the ‘premature and
unjust death of many people’”. (Rowland, 2007:3) I have learnt that my
theology, my beliefs and values were radically shaped by my experiences in
Bosnia. Prior to my tours there, my faith was naïve. I did not have any
comprehension about the true extent of humankind’s ability to commit terrible
sin. Now I do and because of this I now holdfast to a creed that says all
people are equal and valued by God. I am not saying that ABC’s experience of a
mass grave is in anyway less harrowing than my experience of genocide, but that
as a man who holds a level of influence and media interest, he really ought to
be condemning those who commit such violence and not cutting lose those who are
in living in love. Because the last time I looked it was a gospel of love not a
gospel of violence that was being preached by a radical bloke 2000 years ago,
and who this church that the ABC leads, allegedly follows.
Come on
ABC, don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the gay boogie, blame it
on the bad guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment