UK - NORTHERN IRELAND

Pyres of Hatred Toward Gays

By David McCartney,
The Rainbow Project,
Derry, Northern Ireland

There will always be people willing to don the mantle of the Pharisees and Sadducees, seeking to enforce their will, judge and moralise. Often this takes the form of attempting to impose Old Testament Levitican laws on a modern and diverse society.

The world has changed, attitudes have changed.  Today, it is perfectly acceptable to eat crab or lobster, which is prohibited under Levitican law.  Men can cut their hair – and shave.  And long gone are the days when a man could stone to death an unfaithful “wife”, as Leviticus says you can.

Yet being gay is still seen as being sinful by evangelical Christians who “cherry pick” sentences from the Bible to fit their cause.

Gay people are no longer cowering in the closet consumed with fear and self loathing, very many of us are out and proud of who we are, and of the contribution we make to the society in which we live.

We share this world and must make provision to protect minorities from discrimination. It is clear from this court action, the 3rd strike in an orchestrated campaign against the Equality Act that there is a determined effort by some to enshrine discrimination as a right.

The anti-equality lobby are struggling with the fact that a predominantly Christian society has moved forward despite their efforts. Equality, fairness and inclusion are the new laudable aspirations.

Inclusion and acceptance of difference are now seen as integral to the development of a new and peaceful co-existence. This is in stark contrast with the negative spin and scaremongering we hear from the anti-equality lobby.

The behaviour of the anti lobby has been nothing short of disgraceful.

Over-egged, over-dramatised nonsense is being spouted in order to fuel evangelical pyres of hatred.  This is a path fraught with danger and the potential to lead to violence against isolated and vulnerable individuals.

No group, even those that wrap their prejudice as religious opinion, should ever be given a right to discriminate; discrimination should never be enshrined in society as a laudable act.     

Rainbow Project website