Will the gay rights lobby ban Bible reading?
by Jules Gomes, TCW:
Farhad Tehrani is an Iranian Muslim. He is a student at a London University, where I was Chaplain. ‘I am so grateful I can talk to you. My Imam would kill me if I told him I was attracted to other men. I feel so ashamed of my feelings for other men,’ he confides. ‘You don’t need to,’ I reassure him. ‘God loves you.’ He bursts into tears. ‘I don’t want to have sex with other men. I want to submit my desires to God. I am a Muslim. That is my identity. Will you help me?’ he pleads.
Smita Agarwal is an Indian Jain. She comes to see me because our Chaplaincy brochure says that we love everyone unconditionally. ‘My community would disown me if they knew I had lesbian tendencies,’ she says. ‘As a little girl I always imagined being a mother. My parents have arranged my marriage with a handsome businessman. I want to be a good wife and mother. My dharma (duty, conduct, religion) is more important to me than feelings and sexual attraction. I can’t imagine spending my life with another woman. What should I do?’ she asks.
If LGBTI activist Jayne Ozanne has her way at the CofE’s General Synod in July, any counselling I offer Farhad or Smita, or any therapy I may recommend is to be condemned. For Ozanne, it is ‘spiritual abuse of the worst kind.’ In a private member’s motion, Ozanne is asking Synod to ‘condemn conversion therapy’ (CT) as it ‘is unethical and harmful and not supported by evidence.’ Thirteen professional healthcare bodies have already endorsed the statement. Ozanne wants the CofE (when did it become a professional healthcare body?) to become number fourteen.
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