Displaying items by tag: Sexual Orientation

A survey to understand ‘the impact of religious belief on people’s understanding and acceptance of their sexual orientation’ by a charity promoting equality and religious diversity found that 20% of conversion therapy patients attempted suicide. The scale, severity and age at which children are exposed to therapy are worrying. Both the Church and the NHS offer conversion therapy to reduce people’s attraction to others of the same sex. On 4 February gay Christian David Bennet’s autobiography was advertised as a book to challenge the Church. David holds the tension of an orthodox reading of the Bible with passages highlighting that homosexual people of faith are also part of God’s divine conspiracy to reveal His love to humanity. In his opening acknowledgements, Bennet says he hopes the book will change the pressures and prejudices faced by LGBs. On 15 February Mike Davidson spoke to the BBC about the film ‘Once Gay’, which had caused demonstrations at its première. See

‘Preach the Word, but if you want to preach the whole gospel of God, the state wants to shut you up. Rev Barry Trayhorn, a Pentecostal minister, worked in HMP Littlehey, a prison for male sex offenders. Barry provided music, ministry and sermons at the chapel service, which prisoners could choose to attend or not. During a service, he quoted from memory 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 and then continued, ‘You may want to complain about this, but this is the Word of God. God loves you and wants to forgive you.’ A single complaint was put in by one of the ‘cross-dressed’ prisoners to the equality and diversity officer of the prison, saying that his human rights had been violated by the preaching. Barry lost his job, went to the Employment Tribunal and then an appeal tribunal, but lost his case. The judge questioned whether 1 Corinthians 6 should be preached in a prison chapel service.