An Apology To All LGBT People

There are times when being a Christian makes me struggle to my core and today has been one of those times.

In what would have seemed the answer to many prayers a generation ago, representatives of the Catholic Church and the Democratic Unionist Party met in Stormont, the seat of ‘Power’ in Northern Ireland and, amidst a plethora of smiles, came to an agreement. This would have been dismissed as the stuff of fantasy a few years ago, but there they were and united they stood.

So, why am I not dusting down my tambourine and rejoicing? They were united in wishing to see a ‘conscience clause’ inserted into Northern Ireland’s equality legislation, effectively allowing an ‘out’ for those with ‘strongly held’ religious views. The catalyst was the on-going battle over a ‘Christian’ bakery being taken to court for refusing to provide a cake with a pro-gay marriage message. On the back of this, these Christians who agree on very little else (do most DUP supporters even believe that Catholics are Christians?) want religious opinion to trump equality. Such, it seems, is the danger lurking in gay pastry that equality can go out the window even if that means that some visionary can subsequently refuse to provide services to a disability charity because he genuinely believes on ‘strongly held’ religious grounds that disability is a punishment from God, or bad karma, or a failure to say the Lord’s Prayer seventy five times a day or whatever other nonsense might be covered by the expansive skirts of ‘religion’. This is only a mild exaggeration: the author of the conscience clause has stated that it will protect Christian photographers from having to take photos at a civil partnership ceremony.

I believe in God, but I am certain that refusing to provide ‘certain services’ to people because of their sexuality (or their desire to celebrate it) has little to do with God.  I am as committed as my fickle human nature will allow to following (rather badly) the example and teaching of Jesus, but I can’t equate that with the belief that refusing to bake a ‘gay cake’ is more godly than treating everyone with generous degrees of love, respect and equality.

….and don’t give me the ‘It’s not the people; it’s what they do that we object to’ line. That’s the same as saying it’s alright to be a Christian as long as you don’t pray!

‘God is love’ is not a woolly, fuzzy, feel-good, twenty-first century advertising slogan; believing it is a demanding, costly invitation to being misunderstood, mistrusted and marginalised. Believing it leads genuinely to empathising with others, to refusing to condemn or discriminate, to seeing the image of God equally in everyone else. It leads to the cross.

So, for what it’s worth, I apologise to every LGBT person….and to everyone else hurt and abused by narrow, bitter, sanctimonious religion. It’s enough to make God wish there wasn’t a God!