Chris Hansen’s blog

(friends-locked because you never know who’s putting your name into a search engine)

The day did not start auspiciously. I got up, made breakfast as usual, and settled down to read my tweets and blogs. At 9:45 I heard a chime, which turned out to be my mobile phone’s calendar reminder: today was Diocesan Synod day, and it started at 10 am. I had totally forgotten!

So, quickly jump in the shower and get dressed, take a bus to Waterloo, and sneak into St. John’s church and take a seat in the back. Bishop Tom was just finishing his Presidential address. He only has two more Synods to go before he retires (he just turned 69 and he must retire by his 70th birthday) but I’m sure he will keep his hands on the reins of power until the very last second.

Then into bumpf about allowing priests with Permission to Officiate full access to synodical government. Visions of former area bishop Colin Buchanan coming back to haunt us filled everyone’s mind as we busily voted this down.

Finally we got to the meat of the Synod. A motion by Richmond and Barnes Deanery that stated that permanent, faithful, and stable same sex unions were to be valued by the Church and that people in such unions should not be discriminated against when it came to preferment or ordination.

Now to most of you this will be uncontroversial. However, everyone went on and on about it. The Bible-bashers did that, bashed the Bible. One gentleman (I use the word advisedly) said that if we were to pass this, approval of incestuous relationships would be next. What tripe.

One amendment calling for “celibate” to be added to permanent, faithful, and stable was introduced and voted down. Another amendment that would have noted the Bishops’ document on civil partnerships was also voted down.

I then got up to speak. Right after I said that I was in an 11-year same-sex partnership, 3 year civil partnership, and served on many bodies of the Diocese, though whether that was preferment I wasn’t clear (and perhaps we should ask the Diocesan Registrar), the bell went off and the bishop declared “Time” and asked for us to move to next business rather than vote on the resolution. We did that, and everyone except me breathed a sigh of relief.

I have been mulling it over and I think that what I want to say to anyone who is faced with this kind of resolution (that doesn’t DO anything for LGBT people) is: Don’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Bishop Tom has demob fever, and dearly wants his last year in office to be controversy-free. Thus, a resolution of this kind had no chance of passing. The Area Dean of Richmond and Barnes, who introduced it, was happy to move to next business (he must be straight) and leave the question that he had just declared was very important hanging on the vine, unplucked.

From now on I’m not going to participate in a gay-bashing party of this sort unless there is both a tangible good at the end (clear path to ordination being a right for all to explore, for example) and a willingness on the part of the leadership to take it through. Southwark is a liberal diocese, but I can imagine what it would be like in, say, Southwell and Nottingham or Liverpool.

I feel bashed, even though I’m not physically hurt. I shan’t abandon my faith, but I have to recall that the Church is full of people, many of whom I might not like very much.

The point is, I don’t want legislative bodies to be discussing my junk like this. Straight people just don’t get it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 04:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.