Shot by both sides

The statement which Peter Tatchell posted yesterday, about his participation as a visibly gay man in last Saturday's anti-EDL demonstration, is so good, and says so many things that have needed saying, that I'm reproducing it in full below. I’m a supporter of ‘Hope not hate’, but my response to their regular calls for action to halt EDL marches through areas like Tower Hamlets is often one of ‘Yes, but…’ Yes, by all means protest the hateful behaviour of racist thugs, but at the same time, please be equally firm in your condemnation of the fundamentalist militants who pose just as much of a threat to the people of these areas. The lack of such condemnation by anti-racists, and even worse, the explicit or implicit support given to Islamists by some on the left, is surely one of the factors driving some people away from conventional politics and into the arms of the extreme right.

One of the most disappointing, if predictable, aspects of Tatchell's account is the hostile reaction to his 'Gays and Muslims unite!' placard from supposedly left-wing marchers, who responded with 'dirty looks' and even accusations of 'racism' and 'fascism' - against Peter Tatchell, of all people. But it was high time that somebody of stature on the left spoke out about the climate of intolerance, not only of homosexuality but also of freedom of expression and lifestyle, being spread by religious fundamentalists in some parts of East London.

I salute Tatchell's characteristic bravery in taking his principled arguments into the metaphorical lion's den, at the risk of being, in Howard Devoto's immortal words, shot by both sides (see footnote). I'm glad he was able to win over some initially hostile and homophobic Muslims, but I do query his attempt to preach the virtues of 'true' Islam to believers. Peter may be right that ‘love and compassion' are core Islamic values and that's there's nothing in the Quran that sanctions discrimination against gay people. However, (1) attempts to legislate on what's 'core' in someone else's religion are always doomed, (2) there are a lot of other things in the Quran, as in the scriptures of other faiths, that do encourage intolerance, if people want to find them, (3) surely what matters is not holy writ but ‘facts on the ground’ – e.g. the fact that there’s not a majority-Muslim country where it’s safe to be openly gay, and (4) it's for Muslims themselves to decide, and to demonstrate by their actions, whether the 'core' of their faith is going to be tolerance or intolerance, compassion or repression.

Statement by Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights campaign group, the Peter Tatchell Foundation: 

Like many other people, I went to last Saturday's protest in East London first and foremost to oppose the far right English Defence League and to defend the Muslim community against EDL thuggery.

But I also wanted to stand in solidarity with Muslims who oppose far right Islamists. These fundamentalists threaten and intimidate the Muslim community; especially fellow Muslims who don't conform to their harsh, intolerant interpretation of Islam. To varying degrees, both the Islamists and the EDL menace Muslim people.

In addition, I wanted to be visible as a gay man, to demonstrate that East London is not and never will be a "Gay-Free Zone" and to show that most lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are not anti-Muslim; that there are LGBTs who want to work in solidarity with Muslim people to oppose all prejudice, discrimination and violence.

To these ends, my human rights campaign colleague Ashley McAlister and I joined the anti-EDL protest, carrying double-sided placards which read on one side: "Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate" and on the other side: "Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL".  

We got dirty looks from a small number of left-wing and LGBT anti-EDL protesters, some of whom said explicitly that our placards were "insensitive...provocative...inappropriate...divisive"  and that I am "racist...fascist...anti-Muslim."

There was also hostility from a minority of Muslims who were part of the anti-EDL demonstration, including attempts to snatch and rip my placard. These fanatics mostly objected to the slogan: "Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL". I was surrounded several times throughout the day by angry Muslim youths who ordered me: "You must remove this placard...You can't walk here with these words...We don't allow gays in this area...Gays are not permitted here...We don't have gays in Tower Hamlets."

When I suggested that LGBT Muslims must also be defended against the EDL, I was told: "Gays can't be Muslims...We will never accept them (LGBT Muslims)...They can't come around here...We won't allow it."

My response was to engage with these Muslims hotheads and argue against them. The discussions got very heated; at times even menacing and scary. There were moments when I thought I was going to be physically attacked. Thankfully, this did not happen, probably because there were police nearby and, more significantly, because several Muslims intervened to defend my right to be there and to express my viewpoint. Some Muslims even thanked me for joining the anti-EDL protest.

In the course of the arguments, I diffused the hostility of quite a few Muslim critics. I suggested that love and compassion were core Islamic values and that even if Muslims personally disapproved of homosexuality there is nothing in the Qu'ran that sanctions hatred or discrimination against LGBT people. Several eventually agreed that homophobia was wrong. Some shook my hand and parted with a more 'live and let live' attitude - a big improvement on their initial response.

This change in attitude as a result of Ashley and I being willing to engage in dialogue was really positive and inspiring. It shows how important and effective such an engagement can be. We need more of it.

Interestingly, there was very little overt, identifiable Muslim hostility to our placard slogan:

"Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate." There were a few nasty, aggressive looks but that's all. Indeed, several Muslims indicated that they also oppose the Islamist far right.  They realise that extremist groups like Islam4UK and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which want to establish a religious dictatorship, threaten the human rights of mainstream Muslims. These fundamentalists have a similar bigoted agenda to the EDL and BNP.

Our experience on Saturday is further evidence that we need an East End Gay Pride that goes through the heart of the Muslim community in E1, to engage with the Muslim communities and build mutual understanding.

Interestingly, there were lots of LGBT protesters against the EDL. But I never saw a single one with a gay badge, placard, t-shirt or rainbow flag. It was as if they'd all gone back in the closet. Why? Normally, on other demos, they always proclaim their LGBT identity. How strange. Ashley McAlister and I were the only visibly gay protesters in the entire anti-EDL demonstration.

The people who called for the anti-EDL protest to be called off were mistaken. In the absence of a visible counter-protest, the EDL would have been able to rally unchallenged and claim a victory. It would have sent the wrong signal if the EDL had been permitted to claim any part of East London as its own.

Saturday's peaceful protest against the EDL was important because it showed that most of our communities are united in solidarity and that we will not be divided by the hate-mongering of the far right.

What too many anti-fascists refuse to acknowledge is that Islamist fundamentalism mirrors the right-wing ideology of the EDL (and the BNP). In fact, the Islamist goals are much more dangerous. They want to establish a theocratic tyranny, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and LGBT people. Muslims who don't follow their particular brand of Islam would face severe persecution in their Islamist state. These fanatical sects condone terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme.

The failure of many people on the Left to speak out against Islamist fundamentalism is de facto collusion with extremism and a betrayal of the Muslim majority. It also creates a political vacuum, which the EDL is seeking to exploit and manipulate.

Some anti-fascists argue that we should not condemn the Islamists because this will fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. Wrong. Protesting against the fundamentalists and defending mainstream Muslims is actually the most effective way to undermine Islamophobia. 

In the absence of a left-wing critique of the Islamist far right, the EDL is able to pose as the sole critic of Islamist extremism and to mount indiscriminate attacks on the whole Muslim community.

This silence and inaction by many on the left is objectively (albeit unintentionally) colluding with both fundamentalist fanaticism and anti-Muslim prejudice.  

To be credible and effective, opponents of the EDL need to be consistent by also taking a stand against right-wing Islamists. Only this way can we offer a principled alternative to the EDL that isolates and targets the extremists without demonising the whole Muslim population.

Footnote


For those who are too young to understand the Devoto reference:

From a bridge to a journey

I've coming to the end of David Remnick's The Bridge, which sets the rise of Barack Obama in the context of the long struggle for civil rights. If you've read Dreams From My Father, Game Change and David Plouffe's book about the 2008 campaign, and think you know everything there is to know about Obama's background and his historic run for the presidency, then think again. Remnick is particularly good on Obama's political formation in Chicago and his relationship with an older generation of African-American politicians.

After Remnick, I had a whole stack of books lined up and waiting to be read. Before we went on holiday I was halfway through re-reading The Making of the English Working Class, then there was that book about Tom Paine I started in St. Ives, not to mention the thick tome that is Wolf Hall, which I took to Portugal but never quite got round to reading, and which still sits on the floor by the bed unopened, like a reproach.

But I'm afraid they'll all have to wait. For, like half the nation, I have succumbed to the siren call of Mr. Tony and bought my half-price copy of A Journey from Waterstones. Yesterday I took the book on a long train journey and was immediately hooked. Don't believe those who say Blair has a dull literary style. He may not be Doris Kearns Goodwin or Robert Caro, or even Barack Obama, but it's an absolutely riveting read. If, like me, you are fortunate to have a partner who is as obsessed with politics as you are, and if you have the kind of relationship where you are always reading out bits of your books to each other, then you'll find Blair's book impossible. You'll be wanting to read all of it to each other. In fact, I almost bought H. her own copy so that we could read it at the same time: I could hardly wait for her to share the experience with me.

Maybe it's just me. After all, I did re-join the Labour Party the day after Blair was elected leader, and my political trajectory - from the Bennite Left to a kind of progressive centrism - has tended to follow his. Leafing through the photos in the book, it struck me that even our hairstyles have moved in a similar direction, from unkempt long locks in Seventies, via the blow-dried Eighties, to the receding hairline with touches of grey today. I'm sure those who find Blair politically and personally anathema wouldn't enjoy the book half as much as I'm doing.

Mind you, there are some odd passages in the book. Most reviews have mentioned the explicit sexual passages, but there are other parts where the author seems unaware of his own double entendres. Surely any sub-editor who had a passing acquaintance with Freud should have taken a red pencil to this paragraph about Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, with its only half-acknowledged phallic imagery:

During the course of the conversation [with Campbell] I discovered something I hadn't been a hundred per cent of previously: he had clanking great balls. This was someone you would have to pull back, not push forward [...] He and Peter Mandelson might fight (and my goodness they did, occasionally literally), but in tandem they would be as formidable a political force as could be imagined. Peter would slip into the castle through a secret passageway and, by nimble footwork and sharp and incisive thrusts of the rapier, cleave his way through to the throne room. Meanwhile, Alastair would be a very large oak battering ram destroying the castle gates, and neither boiling pitch nor reinforced doors would keep him out.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as I read on. For now: back to the book...

'What do you think I fought for on Omaha Beach?'

In celebration of the overturning of Proposition 8, here's 86 year old World War Two veteran Philip Spooner speaking at a public meeting on marriage equality in Maine last year (via via):

A small sign of hope

This blog has often bemoaned the decline of liberal, engaged Catholicism - and its replacement by a strident, reactionary anti-modernism - so it gladdens the heart to come across signs that all may not be lost. This pro-gay marriage ad from Maine features the Catholic mother of a gay man. Key quote: "I've been a Catholic all my life. My faith means a lot to me. Marriage to me is a great institution that works, and it's what I want for my children, too."

Predictably, conservative Catholics are outraged and, in a move that demonstrates their utter lack of understanding of contemporary, pluralist democracy, have demanded that the ad be removed from the airwaves and from Youtube.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Hunks and monks

On Monday the ‘Faith’ section of the Times website carried a feature on Mexican hunk and Hollywood star Eduardo Verastegui, who ‘chose to sacrifice a glittering film career after rediscovering his Catholic faith.’ It seems the actor whose ‘brooding looks and aquamarine eyes’ once ‘attracted thousands of (invariably screaming) female fans’ decided to give it all up after an encounter with an English language coach who was a committed Catholic.

The moment of truth came, apparently, when the coach asked if Verastegui believed his body was ‘a temple of the Holy Spirit’. When the actor said 'yes', the coach challenged him with 'why are you living in a way that breaks the Commandments and offends God?' Tears and confession followed. (Incidentally you can take a peek at the pre-conversion Eduardo displaying his 'temple' to the world here.)

We’re told that Verastegui is now a changed man:

Today, the 35-year-old actor is a daily Mass-goer, committed to abstaining from sex before marriage, who flies to Darfur to help the starving, provides financial help for women considering abortions and organises house-building missions in Mexico.

All very worthy, I'm sure. But what the Times article omits to tell us, for some reason, is that the re-born Verastegui has also become a prominent campaigner in support of plans to outlaw gay marriage in California. Now, the perfectly-formed Verastegui is welcome to his new-found traditionalist views on sex and marriage, but he has no business seeking to impose them on others, and as a recent immigrant (from Mexico, of all places) he should have greater respect for the long-established separation of church and state in his adopted country.

I came across the piece on Verastegui shortly after reading the very different thoughts of another Catholic convert (and political conservative), Eve Tushnet, who happens to be gay. In an article wonderfully entitled 'Romoeroticism', Eve writes about same sex friendships in traditional religious cultures, and describes the sensual attraction of Catholicism for some gay Victorian religious seekers. She also draws on Catholic author Alan Bray's classic study of same-sex friendships in England from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Reading Tushnet reminded me of the visit we made, while in Tuscany the other week, to the abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, in whose great cloister is displayed a series of beautiful frescoes depicting the life of St. Benedict, by Giovanni Antonio Batsi - better known as Il Sodoma. Commentators differ on whether his nickname is a corruption of a family name, or a reflection of his sexual preferences. Many of the paintings certainly have an erotic charge, including the depiction of a beautiful young man at the right-hand edge of this fresco.

One of Sodoma's panels at Monte Oliveto shows two monks in bed together (interestingly, this is the only fresco missing from the abbey's website). The official interpretation is that this was a way of keeping warm on winter nights, while unofficially it's well known that many same-sex couples entered monasteries together as a way of pursuing their relationship away from the public gaze.

There's evidence, then, that the Catholic Church has, at times in its history, found ways of tolerating and even (Alan Bray argues) blessing and celebrating faithful same-sex relationships. Someone should tell Eduardo Verastegui.

Iran: theocracy, misogyny and sexual repression

There's a great post by Nora Mulready over at Harry's Place, about the nastiness of the Iranian regime, and the lengths to which some sections of the left will go to avoid criticising it:

Over the last three years I have had hundreds of conversations with people about life in Iran. I have long believed Iran’s to be a deeply repressed society in which freedom is curtailed in the name of religion and by an assortment of ‘holy men.’ I was initially bemused when talking to people about this, good people with solid left wing principles, and having my criticisms dismissed as those of a ‘cultural imperialist,’ ‘a neo-con,’ ‘an islamaphobe,’ to name a few terms thrown my way. As time went on and I realised that these weren’t, sadly, the views of the odd person here and there on the left, but those of the left’s mainstream, I moved from bemused to shocked, to saddened and then to angry.

Looking at a society where it is codified into law that a women is worth half a man, where the morality police prowl the streets arresting men and women for such ‘unIslamic’ behaviour as holding hands, where stoning is still an allowed punishment for adultery, where children can be hanged, where being gay is a crime, I found the stance of my so called comrades on the left to be unforgivable. I also found it ridiculous. I honestly could not believe that anyone could look at this society and say that people had chosen to live like this – but it became clear that is exactly what they believed. And worse than that, despite the desperate cries for freedom we are seeing now, some of them still do.

I think Nora's absolutely right to use the word 'repressed' to describe Iranian society, and to highlight its oppression of women and obsession with sexual behaviour. Since writing this post on Saturday, I've been unable to get the picture of Neda, shot to death by the religious militia, out of my head, nor to forget the claim of an eyewitness that her murder, as she stood watching a demonstration, was cold, calculating and deliberate. Putting it together with the clips I posted here and here of security forces and government supporters beating up unarmed female demonstrators, not to mention Iran's notorious record of legalised violence towards women, and you can't help wondering about the pathological roots of this institutionalised hatred of women. 

Could it be that 'repressed', in a specific, clinical sense, is exactly the word to describe the 'holy men' who rule Iran? And does their vicious misogyny stem from the puritanical repression of sexuality that is part and parcel of their twisted religious outlook?  Christopher Hitchens has a great quote from a young Iranian:

I went to the last major Ahmadinejad rally and got the whiff of what I imagine fascism to have been all about. Lots of splotchy boys who can't get a date are given guns and told they're special.

As Hitchens comments: 'It's hard to better this [...] as an evocation of the rancid sexual repression that lies at the nasty core of the "Islamic republic"'.

Theocracy, sexual repression and violence towards women often seem to go hand in hand. Think of Cromwell's Puritans and their vicious campaign of 'witch' burning, or Franco's fondness for summarily hanging female Republican prisoners. This may sound like another puff for Ophelia's new book, but can anyone name me a political system, in which religious institutions have a major role, that does not oppress women? And can anyone doubt that there's a close link between theocratic sexism and the sexual repression that infects fundamentalist religiosity?

Jacqui Smith - the nation's headmistress?

Moving on from spying on our emails and banning foreign politicans she doesn't agree with, the nation's nanny-in-chief - sorry, the home secretary - is turning her attention to the makers of clothers, computer games and videos that she believes are 'inappropriate' for young girls. Announcing a three-month 'fact-finding review' into the 'sexualisation' of teenage and pre-teen girls, Jacqui Smith declared: 'It is time the manufacturers saw the writing on the wall over this and stopped producing these sort of things for young girls'.

Well yes, maybe it is, and as the parent of a 14 year old girl I'm not completely unsympathetic to such arguments. But I wonder what power Smith thinks the government has to tell industry what it can and can't produce? And if it has no such power, then won't this review be just another expensive exercise in paternalistic moralising? Smith's tut-tutting reminds me of the regular missives sent out by my daughter's headmistress, bemoaning the rising hemlines of pupils' skirts. Except that a headteacher has a legitimate role in determining what can be worn within a school, whereas the home secretary has no business trying to influence the fashion and consumption decisions of the nation's teenagers and their parents.

The review is being touted as part of an initiative to tackle violence against women and girls, on the pretext that there might be a link with the sexualisation of young girls. But this is spurious, and risks reinforcing the deeply reactionary assumption that victims of rape and sexual violence are 'asking for it' if they dress in a sexualised manner. By focusing on the behaviour of young women - the potential victims - Smith's review will inevitably draw attention away from the real roots of abuse - the attitudes and behaviour of a minority of men. It's the persistence of certain kinds of masculinity, and not the mutations of contemporary young femininity, that should be the focus of policy-makers' attentions.

Iranian lesbian granted asylum in Britain

This is great news. For more on the background to the story, see here and here. As the man said, 'In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country.' No, because they've all been executed, or fled the country.

Infatuated teacher jailed, branded as sex offender

There was a story in our local paper this week about a teacher who had an affair with a sixth former. He was in his twenties, she was over sixteen, so their relationship would have been perfectly legal - if he hadn't been her teacher. When the matter came to light, not only was he sacked, but following a court case he has been banned for life from working with children, told he must register as a sex offender for 10 years - and given a 10 month prison sentence.

There's no denying that this young teacher was foolish and unprofessional, and that his actions were unethical and exploitative, but should he be branded a criminal - and a sex offender, to boot? Does it really make sense to put him in the same category as rapists and child-molesters? And is it fair to conclude from a single, misjudged infatuation with someone who was, after all, legally an adult, that he is unfit to work with children of any age?

I've often felt that the legislation under which this teacher was convicted was motivated as much by a prudish fear of young people having sex, as it was by a desire to protect children from predatory professionals. Yet another example of nannying New Labour perhaps? Or perhaps I'm overreacting...?

Interestingly, Jeremy Stangroom has a couple of posts up that discuss issues germane to this case.

Earth doomed: gays and feminists to blame, says Pope

I see the Pope has sent a Christmas message of compassion and understanding to gays and transsexuals, claiming (in his usual restrained style) that their behaviour is as much a threat to the planet as the destruction of the rainforests. While he was at it, Benedict condemned gender theory for blurring the distinction between male and female, something that might lead to the 'self-destruction' of the human race, no less.

What can the Pope possibly be afraid of? If he's worried that an increase in homosexuality might threaten the continuation of the race, has no one told him about the far greater threat of over-population? And where's the harm in breaking down some of the rigidities of traditional gender roles? Does he think that improved opportunities for women and a decline in machismo are bad things? Why is Catholicism so keen to sacralise particular, historically-contingent gender arrangements, and can't Benedict see that the day will come when his statement will sound as foolish as his predecessors' blessing of racial and class inequalities?

And, without wishing to be disrespectful, isn't the spectacle of a man in a frilly dress, accurately described by Andrew Sullivan as 'an effeminate, delicate intellectual', condemning gender-bending, just a little absurd? This isn't to 'out' the Pope (though wouldn't it be wonderful to have an openly gay pontiff - given that the number of gay priests is estimated to be around 30%?), but to suggest that the virulence of official Catholic hostility to non-heterosexual behaviour may stem in part from a certain unconscious defensiveness, coupled with the obvious desire to perpetuate a deeply patriarchal power structure.

As a refreshing counterblast to this deeply depressing seasonal pontification, I recommend Polly Toynbee's thoroughly secular Christmas message in today's Guardian.

Update

Here's Andrew Sullivan on Benedict's 'calculated affronts to the dignity of homosexual persons'.

Funding homophobia

A.C.Grayling has fun in this piece with attempts to show that religious belief is 'hardwired' into human nature. The research is funded by the Templeton Foundation - 'an organisation keen to find, or to insert, religion into science and to promote belief in their compatibility'. I'm as hostile as Grayling to this kind of misguided and reductive abuse of neuroscience. But I sometimes think that Grayling, like his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins, is a little harsh on the Foundation. If a rich man wants to spend his money trying to find scientific evidence for his religious beliefs, then that's up to him - and other, more sceptical scientists are free to refute the resulting findings.

On the other hand, I don't think that John Templeton (son of the Foundation's founder and its current president) has any business using his financial resources to influence democratic elections, especially those that affect people's civil rights. It emerged recently that Templeton (acting in a personal capacity, not on behalf of his Foundation) was one of the biggest funders (after the Mormon church) of the successful Proposition 8 campaign. I'm still at a loss to understand why these homophobic religious types are so keen to stop gay people marrying, when it would have no impact whatever on their own practices or beliefs. There seems to be a certain failure to understand the separation of church and state - the churches don't own civil marriage, and they are perfectly free to carry on restricting church marriages to heterosexual couples, if that's their wish.

Supporters of gay marriage may have lost the battle - for now - but they can still laugh at their opponents. I liked this response from some of Hollywood's finest (The West Wing's Alison Janney does a good impersonation of an uptight religious matron):

(Via)

N.B.Having received advice from the Templeton Foundation since writing this (see comment below) I've amended the above post to make it clear that John Templeton Jr's donation to the Prop 8 cause was made in a private capacity and had nothing to do with the Foundation.

The virtues of utopianism

'He linked so many different causes. He was a gay man, friendly with feminist women. He was opposed to vivisection, a socialist who supported animal rights. He was interested in mysticism, wrote for the Fabians but had anarchist sympathies...He was a visionary who was very interested in practical solutions.'

That's Edward Carpenter, described by Sheila Rowbotham, who has just published a long-awaited biography of the late-Victorian poet, philosopher and activist.  Carpenter is one of my heroes, so Rowbotham's book will certainly be added to my Christmas wish list. I very much enjoyed her memoir of Sixties radicalism, so have high expectations for the new book.

The other day, in an exchange of comments with Eve Garrard about this post, I wrote about the dangers of utopianism on the religious left. As a counter-balance, it's worth remembering the positive contribution of visionary thinkers such as Carpenter to progressive change: many of his opinions were considered outlandish in his day but are now accepted wisdom. One of my many bones of contention with gloom-and-doom merchant John Gray, whose Black Mass I'm still struggling through, is his blanket hostility to all forms of utopianism. Instead, I tend to agree with something that the Plump wrote some months ago about Carpenter, Whitman and their ilk:

'The left they belonged to was far from orthodox, it experimented with a range of ideas, many of which were hardly impressive, but others provide insights that are relevant to a libertarian left and laid the foundation for modern sexual politics. At a time of left realignment the rediscovery of what became marginalised traditions is of more than academic interest.'

On religion, intimacy and the bluster of religious bloggers

Andrew Sullivan wrote a lovely post the other day about the intimate friendship between John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John (topical now that the former is being considered for canonisation). He quotes Newman's words on his friend's death: 'I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's of wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one sorrow's greater, than mine'. Andrew adds: 'Newman and St. John lived together, loved one another and even left express wishes that they be buried together'. He's careful not to assume that this is evidence of a homosexual relationship, rather than a deep platonic intimacy, but he's surely right that there was a decided element of high camp in the nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic revival. 

I think Andrew is also right to conclude that 'Newman, like the current Pontiff, was an effeminate, delicate intellectual who had almost no real interaction with women at all and bonded mainly with younger men'. Nothing controversial or condemnatory, in that, you might think. Unless you're Catholic blogger Mark Shea, who responds by claiming that everything Sullivan writes about homosexuality is 'tainted with obsession' and adds: 'It's not the first time he has told absolute lies about the pole star of his journalism. On this matter, I would not trust him as far as I could throw him'. Sounds like Mr. Shea is a tad obsessive himself, not to mention blusteringly defensive when anyone dares, however tentatively, to 'taint' any of his revered religious figures with the slightest hint of gayness.

How did Andrew react to this slur on his journalistic integrity - with a stinging counter-attack of his own, perhaps? No, by recommending (as he has often done) a recent post by Shea and praising him for his 'integrity'. Andrew clearly regards Shea as a moderate voice in the often dogmatic shouting-match of religious blogging - and believe me, as one who has searched in vain for thoughtful, open-minded religious blogs, there aren't many of them out there. But moderation among religious bloggers obviously has limits, and in this exchange it's clear to me that it is the maligned, 'obsessive' Sullivan who embodies the more truly Christian spirit.

Footnote

Speaking of hidden homosexuality among churchmen: I loved that quote, attributed to a participant at last month's Lambeth conference, about secretly gay clergy who are 'so far in the closet, they're in Narnia'. Somehow the popularity of C.S.Lewis' fantasy cycle among Christians adds piquancy to the joke.

Don't make concessions to fundamentalists of other faiths

Of all the arguments against ordaining gay priests, the contention that it will adversely affect relations with Muslims must be one of the weakest. It's not enough that Anglicans have to worry about the reaction of sexual conservatives in the Vatican - now they have to take account of the feelings of fundamentalists of other faiths? According to the Archbishop of Sudan, Daniel Deng:

We are called infidel by the Islamic world...When they are hearing our brothers and sisters from other parts of the Christian global, when they are talking of the same sex to be blessed. Immediately it gives them the way out to tell the other people, these people are evil and they can even harm our people more.

You have to sympathise with Archbishop Deng: it's not easy being a Christian in a majority-Muslim country. But surely he's aware that Islamists don't need new excuses for persecuting Christians: they already regard them as infidels and no concessions will ever appease their intolerance. The Anglican church should not sacrifice its more humane instincts on the altar of a spurious multi-faithism.

Queer as (ordinary) folk

There was a fascinating programme on Radio 4 the other day (you can listen to it again here), in which Olivia O'Leary interviewed a man and a woman, both of whose spouses had undergone a sex change. What made the interview particularly interesting was the fact that, despite the emotional turmoil that they had clearly gone through, both had decided to stay with their partners. When questioned about this by O'Leary, the interviewees talked movingly about still loving the person they married, regardless of their altered gender.

I found the story of the male interviewee, a very down-to-earth ex-policeman, especially affecting. Despite initially recoiling from the prospect of sleeping next to a man (made more traumatic by the fact that he himself had once been a victim of male rape), he had now come to terms with it and was even able to consider resuming some kind of sexual relationship with his partner, at the same time as realising that his own sexuality might be more complicated than he had once thought.

For me, these people's stories were a challenge to a view of sexuality (which at the risk of being accused of po-mo political correctness I'm tempted to label 'heterosexist') which sees it as based simply on the attraction of polar opposites, and fails to recognise that individuals are often attracted to each other by qualities that have little to do with their belonging to the 'other' gender (and indeed might find appealing in members of the same sex, if they were able to fight free of heterosexual conditioning). I remember reading an interview some time ago with a female writer - someone who had been in both heterosexual and same-sex relationships, but was now single. The interviewer asked her which gender her next partner would be, to which the writer replied that she had no idea - it would depend on the person. Incidentally, the ex-policeman's experience is also a riposte to those who would dismiss gender and sexual quality as an elite, metropolitan 'lifestyle' issue (see this post).

Other good news on the gender/sexual equality front: the USA is about to get its first lesbian poet laureate, while it looks likely that the excellent and openly gay Rachel Maddow will soon be hosting her own show on MSNBC. Anyone keen to dismiss Maddow as a stereotypical leftie on account of her stint at Air America and background in HIV advocacy should note that her dad was an air force captain in Vietnam and that she describes herself as a defence-policy wonk and 'national security liberal'. 

Speaking of transsexualism: have you seen Hercules and Love Affair? Disco electronica is not usually my thing, but I love the way this band not only challenge gender stereotypes but also deconstruct the whole idea of what a band should be. Their core membership consists of a gay man, a lesbian and a transsexual, but audiences and critics have often got confused about who is which. What can you say about a band whose presiding genius is a geeky bearded guy who looks as though he's still playing in his bedroom, whose backing singer has virtually no stage presence, and who feature a celebrity vocalist (Antony of 'and the Johnsons' fame) on their debut album, but then replace him for their first world tour with the virtually unknown club singer Nomi? Incidentally - could the latter be the most convincing male-female transsexual ever? Judge for yourselves:

Sex on the brain

Scientists claim to have discovered that gay men and heterosexual women share similar kinds of brains, as do straight men and lesbians. Apparently studies have shown that gay men and straight women both tend to have a poor sense of direction, while they outperform straight men and lesbians in tasks that require verbal fluency.

I'm not sure where this leaves all those lesbians and straight men who happen to be brilliant writers, or all those heterosexual men who have difficulties with maps. Nor is it easy to see how this theory would account for bisexuality, or for the experience of those who go through a gay phase in their youth only to settle down with a partner of the opposite sex, not to mention those whose sexual preferences change in more subtle ways throughout their lives. 

I can see the usefulness of all this neuroscientific stuff for challenging those who insist that sexual preference is a mere lifestyle 'choice', but it's really far too reductive to account for the complexities and vagaries of human desire. Like all positivist science, it isolates historically and culturally shifting phenomena (the notion of 'the homosexual' as a distinct category was unknown 200 years ago), treats them as if they were fixed and unchanging, and attempts to identify 'hard-wired' causes that explain them. I often wonder if, in a hundred years time, this kind of neuroscience will seem as peculiar as the theories of those Victorian phrenologists who claimed to have identified the key features of the 'criminal' brain now appear to us.

Male sexuality in the dock

Levi Bellfield was convicted yesterday of murdering two female students he stalked at bus stops in London. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of a third woman and is suspected of carrying out 20 other attacks on women. The conviction comes 3 days after Mark Dixie was found guilty of the vicious, sexually-motivated murder of Sally Anne Bowman, and 4 days after Steve Wright was told he will spend the rest of his life in prison for the killing of five women in Suffolk.

Last week the Guardian carried an obituary of the American historian and chronicler of gay life Allan Berube. In 1993 Berube gave evidence to the Senate hearings into the US military's policy of barring gay men and lesbians. He argued that the problem that should be investigated was not homosexual behaviour, but heterosexual masculinity.

It's easy to dismiss this as po-mo rad-fem posturing. But after the depressing news of the past week, you begin to wonder...