User Rating:  / 0

BRACE yourselves for squeals of outrage from the “persecuted Christian” brigade over the news that London Mayor Boris Johnson has put the kybosh on a planned “pray away the gay” ad campaign that was due to run on London buses this week.

I am not in favour of this ban. Censorship makes my hackles rise, and my feeling is that the campaign – masterminded by the Core Issues Trust whose leader, Mike Davidson, believes "homoerotic behaviour is sinful" and Anglican Mainstream, a worldwide orthodox Anglican group whose supporters have equated homosexuality with alcoholism – should have been allowed to proceed.

If it had, it would have done these mad Christians more harm than good by flushing their stupid and dangerous agendas into the open, and forcing a healthy and long overdue critical examination of gay “reparative” therapy and the dangers thereof.

Instead, the ban will simply give outfits like Core Issue cause to whinge about being gagged, and the debate will go in completely the wrong direction.

User Rating:  / 0

A DAMNING report – headed Homosexual 'cure' is hell for many – has been published today in Melbourne’s Sunday Age. It details the activities of Christian groups in Australia aping their crazy counterparts in the US by offering “conversion” programmes to tormented gay people.

According to the Age, there are five such programmes in Melbourne and at least ten interstate. Modelled on America's ''ex-gay'' groups, all have fundamentalist Christian roots. Many view homosexuality as an illness that can be cured – an approach some describe as ''pray away the gay''.

The Sunday Age understands that none of these programmes are run by accredited psychologists or psychiatrists. Critics, including medical professionals, say they can and do cause severe psychological harm.

The report focuses on the experiences of David Lograsso who fell into the clutches of three groups he found on the internet. Two were “support” groups – Living Waters and Roundabout Ministries – and the third, Mosaic Ministries, involved prayer sessions and counselling. He also attended a weekend retreat in Sydney run by Liberty Christian Ministries.

His counsellor at Mosaic Ministries, Carol Hardy, attempted to blame his homosexuality to his father ­ whom Lograsso describes as affectionate and loving. This upset and disturbed him.

Carol kept examining my childhood and asking if I'd been abused. There are all these things that are supposed to have made you gay; you're supposed to have been abused or raped or have a father who doesn't care about you. I ended up really confused and thinking, 'Was I actually abused? Have I blocked it out?' It plants ideas in your head.

Helen Kelly, producer of a new documentary about ''ex-gay'' therapy called The Cure says her research uncovered many participants of ''reparative'' programs struggling with depression and self-harm.

These groups never take responsibility for the fact that some people who've been through them commit suicide. They're not registered and they have no duty of care.

While some group leaders describe themselves as ''counsellors'' or ''therapists'', such titles require no training and critics say many do not have the expertise to counsel emotionally vulnerable people.

As a young gay man, Paul Martin spent two years in the early 1990s with Exodus and Living Waters in Melbourne. After quitting, he became a psychologist and has treated many former reparative therapy participants.

I've worked with maximum security prisoners in Pentridge, yet the people who've been through ex-gay programmes are some of the most psychologically damaged people I've seen in my life. I have a client who went through 35 years of these programs … One of the most crushing moments was when he said, in tears, 'I've just realised that I've never known what it's like to love or be loved'.'

Martin is especially critical of groups that point to the disproportionate rates of depression and anxiety among gay people.

The irony is that they're actually creating the terrible emotional damage that leads to these statistics.

User Rating:  / 0

The UK gay Humanist charity, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), has no regrets at the news that Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is to stand down.

PTT Secretary George Broadhead said:

The appointment of Dr Rowan Williams ten years ago was welcomed by some LGBT activists, notably Christian ones, as they believed him to be on the liberal wing of the Church of England and would take a benign stance on LGBT relationships and rights. However, they were soon disillusioned.

It is obvious that any sympathy Williams may have had for LGBT people has been sacrificed by the need to keep his Church unified. Thus, although he condemned the murder of Ugandan gay activist David Kato, he declined to condemn the Ugandan Anglican Church from backing the hateful and draconian anti-homosexuality bill introduced in the country’s parliament.

Concerning gay bishops, Williams said:

There's no problem about a gay person who's a bishop. It's about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe.

Asked what was wrong with a homosexual bishop having a partner, Williams said:

I think because the scriptural and traditional approach to this doesn't give much ground for being positive about it.

Williams has been at the heart of the debate over gay marriage and in February 2012 he said that the law has no right to legalise same-sex marriage:

If it is said that a failure to legalise assisted suicide – or same-sex marriage – perpetuates stigma or marginalisation for some people, the reply must be, I believe, that issues like stigma and marginalisation have to be addressed at the level of culture rather than law.

Mr Broadhead concluded:

It is obvious that hostility towards LGBT sexual relationships and rights emanates largely from the three main religions – Anglican, Roman Catholic and Islam – and nothing had changed for the better in the Anglican Church under the leadership of Rowan Williams. I understand that the present Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is tipped to replace Williams and if this happens it will be a clear case of going from the frying pan into the fire.

Click to comment

User Rating:  / 0

IF THERE’S one thing many Catholics are really good at is demonising their victims. The latest instance of this despicable trend concerns a Maryland woman, Barbara Johnson, who was humiliated by a Catholic priest during her mother’s funeral earlier this year.

According to The Advocate, when Johnson came forward to receive communion, Father Marcel Guarnizo, the vicar of St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, told her, in front of others in attendance:

I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman and that is a sin according to the church.

He also left the altar when Johnson delivered a eulogy for her mother, and did not attend the burial.

Despite clearly being a victim of homophobia, certain Catholic commentators have attempted to portray her as the villain of the piece.

For example, Thomas Peters, writing at CatholicVote.org, called the situation:

A blatantly political attempt by Johnson to generate sympathy and support for gay marriage and to foment public judgement against the Church.

He added:

Now Johnson is on a crusade to get the priest, Fr. Marcel Guarnizo, removed from ministry saying that Fr Marcel ‘brought [his] politics, not [his] God into that Church yesterday’ and that he will ‘pay dearly on the day of judgement for judging [her].’ She continues: ‘I will pray for your soul, but first I will do everything in my power to see that you are removed from parish life so that you will not be permitted to harm any more families.’

Peters then reveals, quelle horreur, that Johnson is a Buddhist, and asked:

So what was she doing presenting herself for Communion at her mother’s funeral if she apostatized?

Although the question is open to debate, it is generally accepted that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. Bryan Cones, writing for US Catholic, makes this point:

Many Catholics admire and explore Eastern religions, and unless she made some public proclamation rejecting her Catholicism and her faith in Christ, she isn't an apostate. Using the strictest interpretation of the law, this is no grounds for denying her communion, especially since her alleged Buddhism was hardly ‘manifest’ in the situation.

Back to Peters, who wailed:

I, for one, am tired of activists such as Barbara Johnson. A woman who used the very death of her mother for a political, anti-Catholic purpose. A woman who ran to the media with her story and an agenda while failing, for instance, to reveal that she no longer considers herself Catholic and evidently knows that this could pose a problem for her.

And I’m sick and tired of the media playing along with these agenda-driven personal stories while exercising zero vetting because they coincide with the media’s agenda.

Apparently, if a story paints the Catholic Church or a Catholic priest in a bad light, it gets green-lighted for publication with almost no due diligence. We Catholics deserve better.

Meanwhile, Guarnizo has been suspended – but not for the humiliation he dished out to Johnson. Instead he has been placed on administrative leave from ministry for:

Engaging in intimidating behaviour toward parish staff and others that is incompatible with proper priestly ministry.

Click to comment