Protest at the ex-gay conference in London

[marshlander]

I've only just noticed this, so apologies for the last minute announcement. Now I'm trying to work out if I can afford the train fare ...

A conference is being held at the Emmanuel Centre in Marsham Street, central London tomorrow (Saturday) by the Anglican Mainstream Organisation. This event will have "a special focus on how religious professionals and friends/relatives can respond biblically and pastorally to those struggling with unwanted SSA (same-sex attraction)".
According to the organisation, the conference is "ideal for clergy, rabbis, psychologists, therapists, educators and others concerned about the plethora of sexual issues confronting us in today’s society, including mentoring the sexually broken, the sexualisation of culture, pornography, the Bible and sex, and marriage, the family and sex".

There will be a protest held outside the conference.25 April 2009
Time:13:00 - 15:00
Location:Emmanuel Centre
Street:9-23 Marsham Street
Town/City:London, United Kingdom

Surely it would be far better for people struggling with issues surrounding sexuality to receive more useful help than the torture that accompanies the kind of useless therapy being advocated by these dinosaurs. As usual they seem to be confusing all sorts of unrelated issues and pretending that we are in need of therapy. My coming-out was the beginning of being sexually mended, not broken as the conference blurb insultingly suggests! :mad:

I hope to see some of you there!

[Dizzybeatle]

Yeah I saw this the other day online, I think its disgusting. These people make me sick, and why anybody goes there voluntarily I have NO idea.

Surely it would be better for people to embrace their sexuality and enjoy it. I was in a bad place just over a year ago, I told one person I was gay and now I am great with it. It can be alot of fun, given the right company

[Dan1089]

Oh brother,honestly though some people have time to waste.These religious leaders have a right to practice,preach whatever they see suitable and as long as it doesnt go against human rights,I have no problem.If you're stupid enough to consult them then thats your own indaba.

[marshlander]

That is far too simplistic, Dan. You know as well as I do that these groups legitimise homophobia by their very presence. The effect their activities can have on those most in need of support and help can be devastating. What they do demeans us all.

I did not consider my time spent at the demo wasted at all. It was very important to me to be there. Having struggled for years to deal with my own issues around being gay I had just started to come out a few years ago when I was asked to take someone 90 miles for one of a series of regular counselling sessions. When we got there, the counsellor asked to see me too. It turned out to be a con to get me to sign up for some straightening-out therapy. Anger didn't begin to describe the betrayal I felt. These zealots have few scruples when it comes to getting their own way. They need to understand that we are not just going to roll over and accept what they say.

It is insulting of you to suggest that people are somehow stupid to "consult them". The pressures their victims are put under are immense, especially if they happen to have been born into certain types of religious family.

[fjp999]

[COLOR="Purple"]I think that religions have often historically proven themselves on the wrong side of tolerance. If they followed the words of Jesus Christ we should expect better of them.

We can look back and most will agree that the Nazis were MONSTERS but many religions and governments sat quietly as Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gays, Gypsies, Disabled, and so-called anti-socials were terminated.[/COLOR]

"Priests will be paid by us and, as a result, they will preach what we want. If we find a priest acting otherwise short work is to be made of him. The task of the priest consists in keeping the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted."

Father Charles Coughlin, responded to Kristallnacht with a November 20, 1938 broadcast that justified the Nazi atrocities as a natural defense against a Jewish-dominated global communist movement.

I dont think anyone can allow any organization, especially ones as large and powerful as religious organizations, to promote their own social ideals be it against minority races, gays, disabled, cat lovers, pop stars...

[Dan1089]

Frank,unlike the prejudices against "minority" races,physically challenged etc that in turn infringe on their rights,the church's stance on homosexuality will never ever change,no matter how many protests you hold.Like I said,the Bill of Rights allows them to express their beliefs,be the issue be on homos,abortion,infidelity etc. and those that choose to listen,do so using their right of freedom of choice.I don't believe your pressure argument Marsh,we live in a world where we're accutely aware of the alternatives around us and with the help of our independent thinking,can make decisions that we see fit.Now if we were talking about an ultra-religious society e.g. Iraq,then I'd understand.What did your toyi-toying help then Derek?Unless Jesus himself comes down to tell us that The Big Man is alright with people like us,the church will never ever change its attitude.

[marshlander]

Frank,unlike the prejudices against "minority" races,physically challenged etc that in turn infringe on their rights,the church's stance on homosexuality will never ever change,no matter how many protests you hold.Like I said,the Bill of Rights allows them to express their beliefs,be the issue be on homos,abortion,infidelity etc. and those that choose to listen,do so using their right of freedom of choice.I don't believe your pressure argument Marsh,we live in a world where we're accutely aware of the alternatives around us and with the help of our independent thinking,can make decisions that we see fit.Now if we were talking about an ultra-religious society e.g. Iraq,then I'd understand.What did your toyi-toying help then Derek?Unless Jesus himself comes down to tell us that The Big Man is alright with people like us,the church will never ever change its attitude.

I’m really going to have to try hard to think about this, Dan, because I disagree with you on so many levels. First of all, I don’t understand what you mean by a “bill of rights”. If that is something you have in SA I am pretty sure we don’t have such a thing in the UK, or even in England and Wales (Fred, help!). As I understand it, certain rights are enshrined in law here, but are not defined by any kind of constitution. At the moment an Equality Bill is passing through Parliament. According to information on a government website the bill will involve:
“Creating a single new Equality Duty on public bodies to tackle discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and encourage good community relations1. The new duty will cover race, disability and gender, as now, but also include age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment and religion or belief, replacing the three existing, separate duties with a single, more effective framework.”

As I believe normally happens, the law will provide a framework and practice will evolve through application of the law in the courts. It will be interesting to see how the tensions between religious belief and sexual orientation will be played out, but I have hope that conditions are in place for happier, fairer and healthier future for all affected by discrimination against glbt people.

The church has always claimed god on its side when seeking to fight off challenges to the status quo in its attempts to maintain its power and authority. Once upon a time god apparently said it was okay to keep slaves:
(Leviticus 25:44-46 -
44 "'As for your male and your female slaves, whom you may have; of the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.
45 Moreover of the children of the strangers who sojourn among you, of them you may buy, and of their families who are with you, which they have conceived in your land; and they will be your property.
46 You may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them may you take your slaves forever").
I’m pretty sure, Dan, that you would be quick to say that this is now considered unacceptable. Similar instances can be found excusing the treatment of women and children throughout history. Hopefully we have learned to be more compassionate and to see the unfairness of misogyny and xenophobia. I trust that you, like me, would dispute the claims of the authorities in those places where these ancient and barbaric attitudes have yet to be condemned in order for all citizens to be treated with equal regard. The denial of equal status by the religions of the world has fuelled countless disputes and caused extraordinary misery. However, changes in the law in some places have seen some of those attitudes firstly outlawed and eventually eroded. Maybe they will never be eliminated in total, but the circumstances can be created for a significant majority of reasonable people to see prejudice for what it is.

I feel on stronger ground for using my experience of having been brought up in the LDS church to feel that change is not as unobtainable as you may think. In its early days the church was well known for its polygamous practices. Less well known was that considerable polyandry was also practised, but this has generally been denied. The reality of this placed many women in despicable and despairing situations. The LDS church also denied its priesthood to all men of African descent. Eventually both these practices were discontinued in the mainstream Mormon church. As a teenager I had to listen to vicious sermons denouncing same sex attraction. Now the language used is more careful. It’ll take time, but I do think that eventually their god will allow their prophet another convenient revelation to the effect that it’s time to relax a little, under certain condisitions. However, nothing will happen until appropriate pressure is brought to bear by governments, including the threat of real penalties.

Believers in the Bible no longer worry about eating pork or shellfish or about wearing clothes of mixed fabrics. They generally don’t sell their daughters into slavery, execute their neighbours for working on Sundays and even laws concerning blasphemy are rarely evoked. Witches are no longer burned at the stake, the Inquisition doesn't strap suspected heretics into machines of torture and women can become priests. Things do change.

Homosexuality was removed from the list of recognised mental illnesses by the World Health Organisation in 1990. As Fred reminded me last evening there are still up to about 2% of mental health professionals who would consider trying to help a gay man or woman change their sexual orientation. I have described elsewhere on these boards how I was conned into attending a counselling session with a psychiatric counsellor who offers this kind of “therapy”. Thankfully I was never subjected to the tortures described here http://www.lds-mormon.com/legacies.shtml

Whatever these so-called therapists think they are doing, the principle remains wrong, Yesterday a rabbi was one of those who came out bearing sweets. I believe he was sincere when he said that he would feel it a duty of compassion to arrange treatment for people who came to him in tears because they were gay and wanted more than anything else to be straight. Sincere perhaps, but utterly misguided. The reason people like us are reduced to tears is because people like him tell us we are evil and don’t have a place in their gang. For some that means loss of family and lifelong friendships, not to mention the uprooting of everything we thought may have kept us anchored and made us who we are.

I’m glad you don’t have cause to believe my “pressure argument”. I hope you never experience it. Of course things can be terrible where priests, rabbis and mullahs have too much power with little or no accountability, but the mind can perform extraordinary leaps of self-deception if the conditions are right. It is not simply a case of living “in a world where we're acutely aware of the alternatives around us and with the help of our independent thinking, can make decisions that we see fit”. If you are caught up with a cult or society it simply doesn't work like that for many.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I really think that toyi-toyi is far too grand a way to describe a bunch of people standing around in the sunshine for a couple of hours occasionally bursting into a couple of rounds of “2-4-6-8, There is no way to make us straight” is just not in the same league. You will also appreciate that I have no way of knowing what we achieved, but I suspect that one or two people at that conference may ask themselves at some point why we were there. They’ll certainly have to explain it to someone if they show the dozens of photographs they took of us. These people think they have thousands of years of wisdom and divine revelation to justify their actions, so any change is going to be slow in coming. However, considering the changes we have seen in the UK over the past decade I don’t see it as impossible.

Jesus is never going to come and put them right. For some of us it’s because characters don’t appear out of books, especially two thousand year old ones, even if we assume these characters existed in the first place. The sad truth is that were I to be proven wrong the authorities who control the minds of the faithful would never be able to accept Jesus anyway. It would cause chaos in the power structures. While crucifixion may currently be out of fashion, he would still find himself being hanged as a heretic, flogged until he admits he is wrong, committed to a hospital for treatment or locked up in wherever the next Guantanamo happens to be. In fact aren't those some of the same treatments treatments meted out to gays?

[fredv3b]

Frank,unlike the prejudices against "minority" races,physically challenged etc that in turn infringe on their rights,the church's stance on homosexuality will never ever change,no matter how many protests you hold.Like I said,the Bill of Rights allows them to express their beliefs,be the issue be on homos,abortion,infidelity etc. and those that choose to listen,do so using their right of freedom of choice.

First of all, I don’t understand what you mean by a “bill of rights”. If that is something you have in SA I am pretty sure we don’t have such a thing in the UK, or even in England and Wales (Fred, help!). As I understand it, certain rights are enshrined in law here, but are not defined by any kind of constitution.

I preface my comments by stating that I am not a lawyer and you are all encouraged to challenge any innacuracies. I think that Dan was referring to The Bill of Rights of the United States, but many countries have something akin to A Bill of Rights. There are three pieces of Legislation in the laws of England & Wales that might be regarded as Bills of Rights, Magna Carta, its lesser known companion, the Charter of the Forests, and The English Bill of Rights AKA An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown[SIZE=3]. However as far as I am aware none of these prescribed a specific right to free speech, assembly or protest, Magna Carta does defend the Customary Rights of English Freemen but not all of these are defined. The UK certainly does have a constitution (not the lower case a) it just isn't written down in a single document called The Constitution (note the capital A) and some of it isn't written down at all it is just custom and practice, there might well be rights enshrined within it but they certainly arn't defined within it.

The US Bill of Rights is the term given to the First 10 Amendments to the US Constitution. The First Amendment is the one of relevance to our debate, which states:-

[/SIZE]Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This codified into constitutional law the freedom of speech and the right of petition that are accepted parts of English Common Law. Freedom of Religion is something that has come later to English law and much more narrowly interpreted.

That said, I don't think that Marshy was suggesting that the law should prevent such a conference taking place, I certainly think that would be a retrograde step since the commonlaw rights to freedom of speech, assembly and of protest that protect the conference also protect the protest against it.

Marshy is quite right that religions do change, generally slowly, but they do change. Whilst I doubt that the protest did much to change the opinions of those organising the conference, there is still hope that it might. However it may change (or help change) the opinions of those attending the conference with questions or who are struggling with their own sexuality or who are reading the press and internet coverage of the event. The most important function of such a protest is to get the conference and its content in the public eye and not to let it quietly carry on outside of the gaze of the general public.

[fjp999]

Unless Jesus himself comes down to tell us that The Big Man is alright with people like us,the church will never ever change its attitude.

[COLOR="Purple"]BUT DAN!!!

If you believe that either The Big Man or Jesus himself ever said anything against homosexuality then something is wrong with the message you have been preached..[/COLOR].

Jesus' Teaching on Homosexuality

“ ......................... ”

http://ldolphin.org/Homo.shtml

A brochure on the door of the Episcopal Chaplain's office at Stanford University reads, "What did Jesus say about homosexuality?" When the brochure is opened the inside is completely blank. Episcopal Chaplain Penelope Duckworth explains, "For we, as Christians, pay particular attention to the words of our savior. Jesus said nothing regarding homosexuality, and in his ministry spoke more about the sins of the spirit than the sins of the body...Our reading of the Bible in its entirety is one of a loving, forgiving and nurturing God who wants us to help create a world that accepts and empowers us all." (Letter to the Editor, by Rev. Penelope Duckworth, Elizabeth Cook and Cynthia Stotts Howard, the Stanford Daily March 1990).

http://www.gaychurch.org/gay_and_christi...uality.htm

Our study is short, because Jesus never taught for or against homosexuality. This raises the question, if homosexuality truly is a sin worthy of eternal damnation, as some believe it is, then why didn't Jesus discuss it? He certainly preached at length concerning every other sin listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Timothy 1:9-10. Why would He leave this one out?

And of course, the only words from The Big Man:

[COLOR="Red"]You shall have no other gods before me
You shall not make for yourself an idol
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Honor your father and mother
You shall not murder
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not steal
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife[/COLOR]

[marshlander]

Not sure if this will work but here is a blog entry from the organiser and a photo slideshow of the event and a Gay News report with additional links.

Not often I'm caught in the same picture as Jimmy Somerville