Roman Catholic Caucus - LGCM
PO Box 24632, London  E9 6XF
lgcm_rccaucus@hotmail.com
07770 431 918  /  020 8986 0807
 
18 February 2008
 
MEDIA RELEASE  -  PROUD OF THE FAMILY JEWELS!  -  for immediate circulation
 
The 1979 Sister Sledge song, We Are Family, echoed as an anthem round St. Anne's Church, Soho, London, on 16 February 2008, when the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement's Roman Catholic Caucus gathered for its 'We Are Family!' Conference. The solidarity expressed in the song's words underpinned much of the day's lively presentations:

"High hopes we have for the future
and our goal's in sight!
No, we don't get depressed;
Here's what we call our golden rule:
Have faith in you and the things you do:
This is our family jewel!
 
Proudly LGBT and proudly Catholic, Caucus members and friends firmly reject having to apologise for themselves either to the Church or the wider LGBT community. Speakers at the conference included Sarah Bourke, a barrister specialising in Discrimination Law at Took's Chambers, Deborah Woodman, Consultant Clinical Psychologist with South London & Maudesley NHS Trust, Andrew Yip, Reader in Sociology at NottinghamUniversity, with English Catholic theologian, James Alison, providing a powerful concluding theological reflection to the day.
 
Sarah Bourke highlighted the ways in which LGBt-friendly legal reforms in recent years had confirmed the reality of same sex relationships as legitimate expressions of 'family', thus challenging previous more rigid social and legal definitions. The disappointment was that the UK Government, unlike Spain, Canada, The Netherlands, had not been able to be consistent in this process, creating an unnecessary institution in 'Civil Partnerships' rather than going for same-sex marriage more firmly. Popular awareness, including paradoxically vigorous opponents such as the Christian Institute, and various Catholic fundamentalist groups, clearly recognised the 'marriage' base of civil partnerships and alternative family models, which built up a cohesive social fabric, even though such opposition preferred to see this leading to a disintegration of family life. Ms Bourke urged groups like the RCC to keep providing the strongly based arguments for progress and development, from their experience and theology, which could include rather than exclude LGBT people. It was vital not to allow the Sexual Orientation Regulations and other anti-discriminatory laws to be pitted against those involving religious freedom or properly faith-based exemptions, as if there was no middle-ground overlap for people affected by both frameworks.
 
Deborah Woodman showed from her own clinical experience, as well as a survey of research in the USA and Europe, that the negative myths around LGBT families, healthy child-care and nurturing parent/child relationships were groundless. Even following breakdowns of previous heterosexual parental relationships and divorce, in subsequently established same-sex families, children seemed to maintain better relationships with the no longer fully present parent. Qualitatively improved levels of communication between children and parents could also be noted in same-sex families. In the debates around responsible child-care and parenting, the contrasts appeared to be more noticeable between children of one-parent families and those with two parents, than between children living in lesbian/gay households, compared with heterosexual parents.
 
Andrew Yip, with long experience of research into faith issues and lgbt communities, took the conference on a vigorous journey through the land of religious fundamentalism. Highlighting more positive developments in  LGBT organisations, he noted increasing working together amongst faith-based LGBT groups as well as with their secular counterparts, not just at local national levels but also internationally, reflecting the impact of globalisation on LGBT movements. All this showed a greater maturity in developing strategies for change.  At the heart of fundamentalism was a concern to maintain power and control and a fear of loss of power. Turning Lord Acton's old adage, "Power corrupts, and  absolute power corrupts absolutely", Yip suggested that it was not power, but the fear of the loss of power that corrupts institutions, including religious bodies. Aggressively negative stances on the parts of various faith leadership to progressive LGBT legal and social reforms were rooted in this, more than in any really sustbstantial theological positions. At one level, LGBT groups needed to 'embrace' the fundamentalists, thus deactivating their irrational fears and homophobic reactions.
 
This theme was picked up by James Alison in his closing theological reflection on the day's proceedings. For too many people, there was a tendency to use God as an idea that simply legitimaised the status-quo, empowering people to 'dig-in', rather than move forward, creating new models of being, of understanding ourselves and our relationships. The Gospel text of Matthew (10: 34 -39) where it refers to Jesus speaking of various members of a household being pitched against each other was part of this. While "a person's foe will be those of his or her own household" might well relativise the secure family unit, what Christians have to do, working out their faith in practice, is to face serious challenges and conflict, not resting back in a comfortable peace, "when there is no peace." The so-called collapse of 'the traditional family' is part of the process of secularisation that Christians should see as 'gift' rather than 'threat'. God has come among us in the person of Jesus to show that the days of placating God by sacrifice are over. The sacrifice of the  scapegoated victim has removed the need for further sacrifice; energy now has to be used to explore what the implications are of living and loving, being merciful and just, in this new, post-sacrificial, sacralised, secular world. We empower ourselves to do this in ritual ways through the Eucharist, engagement with the Word of God, creating the kind of spaces for real conversations with each other which this conference offers.
 
Conference participants mapped out some achievable action points for the RC Caucus to engage with over the coming months: to move the debate beyond the 'nuclear family' to include 'inter-family' values and experiences; to begin to articulate the sacramental potential/dimension of same relationships; to build up better communciation with other LGBT groups to promote a more nuanced approach to understanding faith and religion, not least offering to LGBT and religious media material and experience that lessens a monochrome presentation of Christian, and specifically Catholic faith;
to strengthen existing links with parent/family of LGBT people's orgnaisation, e.g Called To Be One, FFLAGG, Parent Enquiry, etc, with a view to some common action/projects; refute the allegations of fundamentalist Catholic lobbies through a recourse to the best of Catholic tradition, history, teaching and practice; explore how to support/advocate for LGBT litigants through civil processes such as anti-discrimination actions under the recent Sexual Orientation Regulations and Religious Belief Regulations; develop as a priority, information and resources for education and campaigning, through a new LGBT Catholic website.
 
The RC Caucus hopes to make available, shortly, the texts and slides from the We Are Family Conference presentations. Further information and details from: Celia Gardiner, RC Caucus Convenor - 07770 431 918 - lgcm_rccaucus@hotmail.com  or  Martin Pendergast - 020 8986 0807