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Unreconstructed Bigot
Having been born and brought up in the North-east of England, where men are men and the barmaids eat their young, and in the first half of the last century at that, I do tend to take a dim view of the fairies at the bottom of the garden brigade. Forty years ago now, as a young soldier, I wandered into a bar in Newcastle upon Tyne, only to find it full of men sporting subtle shades of lipstick and wearing ladies’ watches. It was my fellow corporal from Middlesborough who pointed out to me that those chaps were not quite as other men were, whereupon we drank our pints with undue haste and gingerly edged our way to the exit.
Even in those less enlightened days there were individuals who found members of their own sex rather more attractive than those of the opposite kind but they had the decency to keep their proclivity discreetly private. Nobody, let alone we rugged types who drank in men-only bars and made offensively lascivious remarks about passing girls, really bothered about people of their ilk. Why should we?
For years we have tolerated gay priests within the church. As long as they didn't try to make it compulsory the rest of us were content to leave well alone. I once attended a church service where the smell of talcum powder in the vestry was overpowering. The visiting lady Methodist Minister looked terrified. I don't know why. It was me that was sweating.
Any right minded person, including unreconstructed bigots like myself, accept that everybody is different, it would be a boring old world if we were not. What we don't want is a Diocesan Bishop pontificating that sexual deviation is sanctioned by the Bible. He has, doubtless, forgotten why Sodom and Gomorrah went up in smoke.
Joe Public tends to generalise and the result of the unseemly row which has gone on in the Church of England could be that Christians will be labelled as a bunch of limp wristers. If only those who are would shut up about it we would accept them as we always did, as brothers and sisters in Christ who have a slight problem in the chromosome department
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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