A growing challenge for the church: LGBTQIA activists speak out on religion at World Pride

Spiritual abuse is the next scandal coming for churches, LGBTQIA activist Jayne Ozanne told a plenary session of World Pride’s Human rights Conference. And international law could be used to repress anti-gay religious practices.

The mornings sessions ended on a hopeful note for this observer. Read on.

“I don’t know if it’s been looked at over here,” said Ozanne, regarded as a key leader of the LGBTQIA movement in the church of England. “We talk about sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse. Spiritual abuse is when there’s a power differential and teaching that causes harm. And that often required to date, we’ve just allowed religions to self-police. But even the former archbishop Rowan Williams has started about the need for an independent body to look at practices and say whether they are truly causing harm.

“And I think we just have to be honest and open about the fact that certain beliefs and practices are causing people we know to consider taking their lives. And that’s not a fact we can dodge around. So let’s have an independent body.”

Fran Kelly, chairing the conference section on faith, responded, “I mean, if you set up that commission, and there was a look at spiritual abuse, I mean, that’s going to blow the lid off. A whole lot of churches, isn’t it? I agree. I went to ask for a review on that.”

“I’ve said it’s the greatest scandal yet to be uncovered, “ Ozanne said. We’ve had the sex abuse scandal in the church. I think the way that churches and other faiths have treated the LGBT community is a huge scandal that is to be truly understood.

Earlier in the discussion, Kelly asked about Premier Dominic Perrottet’s statement that his government would pass conversion therapy. However, she added, “He also promised religious leaders in this state that any ban would not infringe on their rights to pray and preach on sexuality. Is that a loophole? I mean, how do you hear that?” [Opposition leader Chris Minns has made a similar commitment]

“For me? It is complex, but there is a loophole when you pray with an individual one on one in a power relationship, religious leader or pastoral leader, with an individual where you are praying to them to become straight or praying for them to be cis-gendered, that will cause them harm. It is a religious practice, not just a belief; it’s a practice – something you’re doing – which causes harm.

“And international law is very clear. That freedom of religion or belief has limits. It’s only up until the point that it causes harm. Now preaching is something far more generic; it’s to an open group. It’s not directed at an individual. There’s not the same power dynamic, and so many would argue that you can continue to preach, and that’s how the legislation in many countries has been framed. But even then, that can be hate speech. And there’s a fine line there too.”

Even the Victorian conversion bill legislation would not be strong as Ozanne would like, from these remarks, certainly about preaching. But, on the other hand, that law’s blanket ban on prayer might go further because there can be prayer that does not involve a power differential, between friends, for example.

Faith panel

A key player in shaping the law, Ro Allen, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner, participated in a faith story panel. They said a Uniting Church minister saved their life. 

“When I was 15, I went into a really dark space. I fell in with an evangelical so-called Conversion movement, which promised me that healing in reality, of course, it was a place of false promises. And that left me with deep self-loathing. I owe my life to the Reverend Dorothy McRae-McMahon, many of you might know, a Sydney based – Yes, she needs a clap  – Uniting Church minister. 

“She saw me before I even saw myself and taught me that it wasn’t a choice between my sexuality and my spirituality. So I stayed in the United Church and found other LGBTIQ advocates like myself and people of faith.”

Allen saw a role in lessening, but not eliminating, religious opposition to the LGBTQIA movement. “I met on a number of occasions with the Victorian director of the Australian Christian lobby branch, a deeply conservative coalition of churches in Australia. We had a cup of tea; we broke bread. In fact, we shared them often. At those times, I go deep into a place I call the wealth of graciousness. I fundamentally believe that people can shift and change, but I also know how hard it was for me to shift and change my thinking about my faith and my sexuality. So often go to the well and have a big drink. And think about Dorothy’s advice back then. And she said, ‘revolutionary patience, Ro, revolutionary patience.’

“Because I believe when you can provide a safe place for that dialogue, you can see change, real change. They may not change their beliefs about us. However, they may not campaign so hard against us.”

The Other Cheek wonders whether theologically conservative Christians can do more of the same.

Allen is proud of her role in the Victorian conversion therapy bill. “

“This legislation is a gift to my 15-year-old self. It’s a gift to my queer daughter, who actually turned 15 on Tuesday. And it’s a gift to everybody who has faced a choice between faith and identity. I’m so proud of the wording in this act. It’s intentional, and it is clear. 

“And I quote, ‘All people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, feel welcome in Victoria and are able to live authentically and with pride.’”

Anthony Venn_Brown, perhaps the best-known local campaigner for churches to affirm LGBTQIA, told of a satisfying moment revisiting the site of conversion therapy. He described how he had fled a conversion therapy program that had regarded his underwear as too gay. 

“Fast forward to 2020; I was provided with a cottage to live in during the pandemic in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. What I hadn’t considered was that it was the same area as the conversion therapy program. Triggers were everywhere I went and looked, reminding me of some of the darkest days of my life. 

“The property and church still existed. Through a series of synchronistic events, which will take too long to explain. I received a call from one of the leaders of the church who said our church needs to become LGBTQ-affirming. Can you help us with that? There could not have been a more perfect person in Australia to help them; the organisation I founded, Ambassadors and  Bridge Builders International, works with Christian churches, leaders, and organisations to ensure they genuinely affirm LGBTQ people.

“On Sunday, the 27th of March last year, a service was held where not only did the church announce it was officially totally affirming. They issued a personal apology to me and to others that have been harmed through the previous ignorance [about] sexual orientation and gender identity. 

“This was, of course – a moving and profound moment. Even more special to me was that we all walked out on the property’s veranda. Right where I had my last encounter with the leader of the church. My sister and brother-in-law had come to rescue me before I could escape. She pulled me back and told my sister and brother-in-law that I was one of the city’s worst homosexuals and continued to assassinate my character completely. Standing in the very same place. I took back my power. [in aiudible] where I was. I was not broken. I did not need fixing. I was loved, complete and whole.”

Timothy Jones, Associate Professor of History at La Trobe University, said, “ I guess what really stands out to me is how slow religious institutions are to change. They can work out that faiths don’t need to be discriminatory. But there’s something about religious communities that just sticks in ways that it doesn’t in other contexts … Things that are not central to faith. Views about sexuality and gender identity have become valorised and elevated and become more important to religious conservatives than in the past. So there’s like funny, funny things are going on in that intersection of faith and sex.”

“I’m not sure funny is the word we would use for it,” Fran Kelly quickly retorted. 

The role of special revelation and the Scriptures in forming Christian doctrine was missing in the World Pride analyses of faith, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Jones gave a couple of interesting statistics. Seventy-five per cent of the Australian LGBTQIA communities are non-religious and overall have poor mental health. He wanted the LGBTQIA community to look after spiritual health, describing a real gap.

His view is that conservative religious people are a tiny minority. “I think one of the problems with the debate is that it’s a really distorted debate. We have a tiny minority of super-conservative religious people whose voices are amplified through this false journalistic balance. We’ve got to get people speaking on either side. It’s a tiny group of people who want to be who want to maintain their legal right to discriminate.”

At this point, Jones seems to echo the conservative view that they are unheard.

He said, “I think there are maybe 400 schools in Australia devoted to raising people in a conservative environment, and the legislation will not affect those schools.”

There is room to dispute his view on whether those schools will be affected by a change in the law, but if there are only 400 schools that would want to hire exclusively Christian (Jewish or Muslim) teachers, the argument about the impact of a discrimination exemption’s effect on people’s chance of getting a job is vastly lessened.

The most novel point in the discussion came from a different voice – a Sheik Krob from Kharkiv – who suggested “covenanted realism”, – which might provide hope for those who believe that the conservative religious minority and the sexual minorities must learn to live in the same society.

“Let’s be frank. To many LGBT people, the term ‘religious freedom’ is a call for a movement that seeks to dominate you and confiscate your basic dignity. Religious freedom can be seen as a movement that wants to deny your very existence … And let’s keep being fair to conservatives in the religious freedom movement. The LGBT agenda seems to them to lead to outlawing of religion. They see it as wanting to destroy the moral fabric of society as they know it. It’s not difficult for us to imagine these polarities going [to war] until one or the other is destroyed. Both sides are committed to their cause. But that destruction won’t happen. There’s another view that relates to what’s called covenanted realism, that the humanity of victims must always come first and be defended together.” 

He challenged the World Pride Human Rights Convention attendees to seek out a group that is very different “from what I want” and to identify the most vulnerable within it and stand up for them.