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Alan Bray was one of the foremost social historians of his time. He died in 2001 just one year before his final work, The Friend, was posthumously published by the University of Chicago Press. This outlines the meaning of same-sex friendship religious rituals and burial imagery from the medieval period through to the 19th Century, challenging the silence of the Roman Catholic Church on these significant experiences. Bray was an Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck College, University of London and a member of the Roman Catholic Caucus.
Aidan O'Neill QC is a Scottish Barrister, based in Edinburgh and a member of Matrix Chambers in London. He acted for the National Union of Teachers in the recent Judicial Review of the UK Government's Employment Discrimination (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (2003). He has written and lectured extensively on employment, gender and sexual orientation issues.
The 3rd Alan Bray Memorial Lecture [gives] lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people the opportunity to wise up to the insidiously homophobic discrimination now potentially available to UK religious organisations in their recruitment and employment practice. We have already seen evidence of this in the sackings of openly gay men by Catholic agencies. Current employment legislation and procedures amount to open season on an authentic Catholic commitment to diversity.
The 1st Alan Bray Memorial Lecture, Exploding Mystery, was delivered by Professor Elizabeth Stuart of Winchester, with a response by Professor Mark Jordan of Emory University, USA.
The 2nd Alan Bray Memorial Lecture, Reclaiming OurTradition: Rights, Diversity and Catholic Social Teaching, was delivered by Professor Conor Gearty, Rausing Director - Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics, with a response by Dr. Gerard Loughlin, Senior Lecturer in Theology, University of Newcastle.
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