Dear Lynn Green and Stephen Keyworth
I write this letter in response to the letter by the Baptist Union of Great Britain released in April 2016 and the statement it contained entitled ‘Baptists Together and Registration of Buildings for Same-Sex Marriage’
I have known Leytonstone United Free Church for 5 years now, since I became friends with their former minister’s daughter at school. I have therefore had the privilege to watch them navigate the journey of the Marriage (same-sex couples) Act 2013 and the way Church Council in Leytonstone quickly decided that registration as a same-sex wedding venue was the right thing to do. This, I assume, came about not only as a result of their faith but also their wider sense of morality, the bible does after all give relatively little guidance on same sex relationships. I was delighted to be a part of one of the first churches in the UK to register as a same sex wedding venue and have enormous respect for the community that makes that church what it is. ‘Radical welcome’ is what LUFC calls this on its website, a website which doesn’t hide their acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people, unlike so many other churches who present themselves with a stiff upper lip and pretend this segment of humanity doesn’t exist at all.
This pretending LGBT+ people don’t exist is what the statement from the Baptist Union of Great Britain felt like. It was patronising, it was dehumanising. The clinical language of ‘same sex attraction’ it uses is offensive and to read it feels as though it’s describing a disease. Honestly, it surprised me to read such a statement coming from a body able to call LUFC a member because I could see none of their spirit in that statement. It also felt like a slap in the face to the principles of church governance that underpin the baptist union. It seemed to be saying ‘make up your mind, but make sure you say no’. It seemed to forget that LGBT+ people are people.
When Leytonstone United Free Church became a registered same sex wedding venue, it gave me a warm feeling. I’ve never felt safer in a church than I do in LUFC since that decision. This is because it isn’t really about marriage, it’s about how LGBT+ people are perceived. It’s about whether those making decisions feel it is even conceivable to allow people like me to be second class citizens on their watch. The church council at LUFC seem to understand this and foster a friendly environment where I don’t feel afraid to hold my boyfriend’s hand, to be honest about who I am. It would be devastating if they were to back away from that for any reason, particularly if it was in response to pressure from the Baptist Union. So rarely do I encounter a church where I feel valued as a human being. I don’t feel comfortable in the methodist church I was baptised in, one of many where I still can’t get married. On the rare occasion I do find myself within its walls, I feel strange, an awkwardness and a lack of belonging which I can scarcely describe and a fear that I might be attacked, however nicely it might be phrased, for the moral inadequacy that so many denominations perceive being gay to be.
At the end of the statement is a sentence about mutual respect and that is at the crux of this. Baptist churches being asked to refrain from supporting their members, to refrain from ensuring they are a safe place and a welcoming place for people to come to join together and worshiping god is not mutual respect. It’s entirely disrespectful. It is disrespectful to LGBT+ baptists and would be baptists who are pushed out into the cold by this message and it is disrespectful to those who want to welcome them in. I understand there are people who feel, for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense to me, that marriage should be a right which is denied to people like me and my boyfriend. Or who think that the right to marry people of the opposite sex is somehow sufficient or equal. But mutual respect is not acquiescing to the desires of these people like the BUGB appears to be doing. It is accommodating their beliefs in a way which maintains respect for the people who disagree with them. Respect for the men with boyfriends and the women with girlfriends who are pushed out by ‘refraining’ from same sex marriages. Respect for Jesus who taught a message of love, not one of discrimination.
Sincerely,
Jack Mitchell
“Same-Sex Attracted”
Church Attender currently living away at university
14 April 2016
I write this letter in response to the letter by the Baptist Union of Great Britain released in April 2016 and the statement it contained entitled ‘Baptists Together and Registration of Buildings for Same-Sex Marriage’
I have known Leytonstone United Free Church for 5 years now, since I became friends with their former minister’s daughter at school. I have therefore had the privilege to watch them navigate the journey of the Marriage (same-sex couples) Act 2013 and the way Church Council in Leytonstone quickly decided that registration as a same-sex wedding venue was the right thing to do. This, I assume, came about not only as a result of their faith but also their wider sense of morality, the bible does after all give relatively little guidance on same sex relationships. I was delighted to be a part of one of the first churches in the UK to register as a same sex wedding venue and have enormous respect for the community that makes that church what it is. ‘Radical welcome’ is what LUFC calls this on its website, a website which doesn’t hide their acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people, unlike so many other churches who present themselves with a stiff upper lip and pretend this segment of humanity doesn’t exist at all.
This pretending LGBT+ people don’t exist is what the statement from the Baptist Union of Great Britain felt like. It was patronising, it was dehumanising. The clinical language of ‘same sex attraction’ it uses is offensive and to read it feels as though it’s describing a disease. Honestly, it surprised me to read such a statement coming from a body able to call LUFC a member because I could see none of their spirit in that statement. It also felt like a slap in the face to the principles of church governance that underpin the baptist union. It seemed to be saying ‘make up your mind, but make sure you say no’. It seemed to forget that LGBT+ people are people.
When Leytonstone United Free Church became a registered same sex wedding venue, it gave me a warm feeling. I’ve never felt safer in a church than I do in LUFC since that decision. This is because it isn’t really about marriage, it’s about how LGBT+ people are perceived. It’s about whether those making decisions feel it is even conceivable to allow people like me to be second class citizens on their watch. The church council at LUFC seem to understand this and foster a friendly environment where I don’t feel afraid to hold my boyfriend’s hand, to be honest about who I am. It would be devastating if they were to back away from that for any reason, particularly if it was in response to pressure from the Baptist Union. So rarely do I encounter a church where I feel valued as a human being. I don’t feel comfortable in the methodist church I was baptised in, one of many where I still can’t get married. On the rare occasion I do find myself within its walls, I feel strange, an awkwardness and a lack of belonging which I can scarcely describe and a fear that I might be attacked, however nicely it might be phrased, for the moral inadequacy that so many denominations perceive being gay to be.
At the end of the statement is a sentence about mutual respect and that is at the crux of this. Baptist churches being asked to refrain from supporting their members, to refrain from ensuring they are a safe place and a welcoming place for people to come to join together and worshiping god is not mutual respect. It’s entirely disrespectful. It is disrespectful to LGBT+ baptists and would be baptists who are pushed out into the cold by this message and it is disrespectful to those who want to welcome them in. I understand there are people who feel, for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense to me, that marriage should be a right which is denied to people like me and my boyfriend. Or who think that the right to marry people of the opposite sex is somehow sufficient or equal. But mutual respect is not acquiescing to the desires of these people like the BUGB appears to be doing. It is accommodating their beliefs in a way which maintains respect for the people who disagree with them. Respect for the men with boyfriends and the women with girlfriends who are pushed out by ‘refraining’ from same sex marriages. Respect for Jesus who taught a message of love, not one of discrimination.
Sincerely,
Jack Mitchell
“Same-Sex Attracted”
Church Attender currently living away at university
14 April 2016