Facebook no more

I am sorry to those people who were sent invitations to to be a fb friend over the weekend. I rejoined in a half hearted manner after a number of friends said I should be on so they could learn about my various encounters with the NHS - rather than them phoning home. I thought that sounded a possibility and rejoined fb. It soon became obvious, from the number of emails saying "Thanks, but no thanks" that my email contact listed had been contacted (automatically?) by fb. I decided to come out of fb again, this time permanently.

I will try and post information on this blog and if time goes by with no posting I suggest you email or ring me or ring home.

bjr

John Bell on gay marriage

John Bell of the Iona Community in Scotland did BBC Radio 4's Thought for the day this morning:

SYNOPSIS

There’s a bit of a stooshie in Scotland at the moment, which could become a stramash if it spreads further south. It’s about marriage, or more specifically gay marriage.

Last week the Roman Catholic Bishop of Paisley took issue with Alex Salmond, the first minister over the SNP Government’s intentions to have a consultation on the issue, and implicitly suggested that if the SNP favoured gay marriage, 800,000 Roman Catholic voters might be advised to think carefully about their political preferences.

Things got worse at the weekend when the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats publicly upbraided Bishop Tartaglia.. And when we consider that last week at the Tory party conference, the Prime Minister said that he supported gay marriage, it seems that the range of clerically approvable parties is rapidly diminishing. Perhaps Scottish catholics will end up voting for the D.U.P..

The issue is neither confined to one nation or denomination. There is hardly a Christian church in the West which has not found itself riven over the issue of what to do with gay people whom God continues to bring into the world in significant numbers.

The Biblical arguments over a diminishing number of texts which allegedly prohibit intimate same-sex behaviour have been defended and refuted ad nauseam. Psychiatrists have long given up calling homosexuality a disease, and researchers studying the brain increasingly suggest that sexual orientation far from being a matter of choice or the result protective parenting , may well be determined by genetics.

The argument expounded by some is that gay marriage is against the natural order. You could similarly claim that having two eyes of different colours or an IQ of 190 are against the natural order. The natural order has always produced exceptions.

Others would argue that far from undermining marriage, holy wedlock between same-sex couples could enhance the significance of marriage as a publicly recognised relationship which encourages fidelity and commitment. This is the position taken by Professor David Myers, an internationally renowned academic psychologist and practising Christian whose own Reformed Church of America is hardly a trendy liberal institution.

Whether or not we agree or disagree on religious or moral grounds about the rights and wrongs of same-sex relationships, as citizens of our nations, I believe we have a responsibility to enable same sex couples who are deeply convinced of their mutual love to celebrate and safeguard that commitment with public and legal significance. A civil partnership can take care of the business side, but marriage is the true endorsement of love.

Gay marriage further thoughts

I sent this piece into The Guardian yesterday in a bid to get it into their Face to Faith Saturday column. As they did not use it I thought I would share it with readers of Notes from LE2. I think my current position is one of indifference to using the nomenclature of heterosexuality and I am quite happy with Civil Partnership for same sex couples and marriage for opposite sex couples. I am not sure I want all the baggage that heterosexual marriage seems to have accumulated. Nor am I happy with clergy telling the rest of us what we can and cannot do. I would never want to live in a theocracy of any religious stripe.

Draft for Face to Faith 8 October 2011

“I am for gay marriage – because I am a Conservative”, David Cameron’s words to the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester may mark the real start of a British version on the culture wars that have plagued the USA for a number of years. Given the relatively small number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people (say 7 or 8%) in the population as a whole and the ±50,000 civil partnerships that have been registered since the end of 2005, we are not talking big numbers but they are not without significance. Given the general indifference of the population to statements by religious leaders it seems likely that the gay marriage driven culture wars may not break out quite yet. Fundamentalist attacks from heteronormative, mostly Christian and Muslim, leaders on gays seem not to attract much general support currently but history shows that this can change.

Ever since the possibility of registering civil partnerships became a reality it has been my experience that to many people, both heterosexual and homosexual, they are seen as ‘marriages’.  For most people, the idea of a ‘civil partnership’ that looks like a wedding (invitations, register office, dressing up, rings, perhaps vows, witnesses, reception, cake) is a marriage. The only serious opposition seems to be coming from religious leaders who claim that marriage is reserved, in their view, for heterosexual people and can only be between a man and a woman. As a member of one of the most vocal of the anti-gay marriage faiths, I am also aware of the split between the official line given out by some, but only some, church leaders and at the local level, clergy and laity who are often supportive. In the RC church this matches the split over contraception where the official line is against and at local the pastoral level where there is almost total silence from the clergy and widespread use of family planning by the laity. This split, if to a lesser extent than contraception, is even to be seen in the hottest pro-life issue, abortion, where it is reported that even practising Catholics are much more tolerant than the official line of total opposition.

Until now, the bitterness of the USA’s culture wars has not been that present in the UK, except in the blogs of the Telegraph. The usual response to a same sex couple announcing their intended civil partnership is one of general pleasure and support. Although a small grouping and hardly mainstream, the Society of Friends (Quakers) has consistently led the field for change most recently by wanting approval for same sex marriages to be solemnized in the context of Meetings for Worship. Currently, civil partnerships, like register office heterosexual weddings, have to be devoid of any religious element – even if this is pushed to the limits in practice with neo-religious readings and pious comments from registrars. Although it is hard to foresee a time when Catholic gay/lesbian couples wanting Nuptial Masses and blessings will be celebrated in public. In the Anglican Church, as with the remarriage of divorced people, some clergy will preside over gay/lesbian marriages and some will not. Catholic sacramental theology and canon law sees the ‘ministers’ in a marriage as the couple. This is why the individuals in the couple have to say the words at the heart of the ritual – they do not need a clergy-person if push comes to shove on the mythical clergy-less desert isand. The job of the clergy-person is to preside over the ritual and act as keeper of the official register; the couple marry each other.

The sadness of the anti-gay marriage position taken by some Catholic bishops is their inability to see that same sex marriage is not an attack on the sacrament of marriage but a desire to share in the grace it brings; grace that includes the blessings on and social/community support for the relationship. God knows, sustaining a relationship is difficult enough for both opposite and same sex couples. They need all the graces available.

Gay marriage (continued)

I suspect in the UK we are going to get a watered down version of the culture wars that have been raging in some parts of the USA recently. No sooner had Mr Cameron uttered his fateful words about being in favour of gay marriage "because I am a Conservative" than the Catholic Archbishop of Southwark was objecting with his argument that marriage is only reserved for heterosexuals. He is often quick off the mark like this and it might be useful for those in the debate to read some of Andrew Sullivan's writings first.

Civil Partnerships go back as far as 2005 and our experience is that the discourse of marriage is used by most ordinary people to describe our relationship. I noticed recently on the forms being used about me in the NHS is that I was "married". Funny, no one told me, I thought I was in a civil partnership.

From the Prime Minister at the Conservative Conference

"I once stood before a Conservative conference and said it shouldn't matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man. You applauded me for that. Five years on, we're consulting on legalising gay marriage.

And to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it's about equality, but it's also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative."

Fancy that. Any comments?

Back to LE2

Thanks for all the messages of support and encouragement. I was discharged from hospital last night and and hope to stay at home for a good length of time. I will be followed up in various out-patient clinics. I am advised to take it very easy, avoid crowds and parties and "look after myself". So I will miss both the opening of the Leicester Thursday lunchtime chamber concerts and Leicester Tigers v Harlequins on Saturday. Loss, loss, loss.

The opportunity of watching the Tory Conference from Manchester is not to be missed. Those attending look so odd, there is no debate and the attack on Labour is relentless. Much to do.

October 1st

I missed the feast of Cosmas and Damien, the twin brother 2nd century physicians, who specialised in the free treatment of patients; the were martyred for their faith, of course. I am encountering many health care professionals who may never have heard of CnD but carry on their tradition of healing. Currently, hot money is now on some kind of pneumonia which will keep me here for some time.

I have stopped direct clinical work as it seems wrong to keep patients waiting then restarting then stopping again. Perhaps I will do some indirect work like supervision, consultations and teaching.

My current interest is The Pentateuch, Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew bible as I work my way through how they have been constructed over the millennia. Fascinating and suitably distant from psychotherapy.

Now the caravan of media hype has left Liverpool and Labour it goes to Manchester to look at the Tories. That should be entertaining if I have the strength.