Archbishop’s Plea is Not Enough

KENILWORTH, 28 NOVEMBER 2004 — The Archbishop of Canterbury’s plea to Anglicans to tone down the hateful language that some of them have been using in relation to gay people is not enough, says the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA).

GALHA secretary George Broadhead said that Rowan Williams had permitted homophobes to trample over the rights of gay people during the recent controversies surrounding Gene Robinson and Jeffrey John.

“Rowan Williams at first agreed to Jeffrey John becoming the Bishop of Reading and then, under pressure from evangelicals, he withdrew his support,” said Mr Broadhead. “This was not the act of a brave man. If he truly believed that gay people should be treated with respect and allowed their dignity, he would not have backed down but would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Jeffrey John and Gene Robinson. Instead, he issued wishy-washy statements about needing to listen to both sides. This gave Anglicans like Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria the opportunity to use hateful language about gay people, calling them lower than dogs.”

Terry Sanderson, a veteran columnist on Gay Times magazine, and a supporter of GALHA, said: “Rowan Williams has been weak and equivocal in his support of gay rights. In trying to be a politician and please both sides, he has sacrificed the one thing that I would have thought clergymen valued most of all – a commitment to justice and the truth. He should not be trying to accommodate the likes of Akinola with his primitive and superstitious understanding of human sexuality, he should be rejecting him much more vigorously and supporting much more strongly those gay people in his church – and outside of it – who are under intense pressure from bigots, homophobes and murderers.”

Mr Sanderson added that the recent spate of homophobic violence – including murder – in Britain showed that Mr Williams was failing in his duty to stand firmly with those who are being attacked on the basis of who they are.