Quest Chair’s Letter to Archbishop Nichols
regarding the Archbishop’s Response to the new Sexual Orientation Regulations
Sunday, 3 December 2006
Dear Archbishop Nichols,
I received a call from THE TABLET earlier this week regarding your remarks of last weekend which touched on the Government’s Goods and Services Bill and its relationship to the lesbian and gay community. This was the comment I sent them on behalf of the hundreds of lesbian and gay Catholics who are members of QUEST.
“These comments sadden me. It seems that the Archbishop, fresh from his victory over faith schools, believes he can bully the government into submission by threatening to withdraw the Church’s co-operation in a whole manner of areas if it does not climb down.
“QUEST has some sympathy for the Church's call for opt-outs in a tiny number of cases, but in general the proposed new law reflects the government’s obligations which are binding on all signatories under the European Convention on Human Rights: namely that access to goods and services such as health care, accommodation and the like are made equally available to all. Lesbians and gay men do not ask for special treatment: they ask to be treated with the same dignity as everyone else.”
Regrettably, THE TABLET failed to carry this comment due to pressure of space, allowing you an apparent unchallenged run on this issue. As a journalist myself of more than twenty years standing, I find that almost incomprehensible.
Nevertheless, I must report to you that your remarks last weekend have caused great upset and anger. Not just in the predictable self-interested quarters of sexual minorities and liberal/progressive circles, but among mainstream Catholics, many of whom one would hardly ever find taking issue with a senior member of the Church. It is a significant indicator of how attitudes have changed on the general theme of gay equality that such people now find themselves opposed to such “hard-hitting” (your own Diocesan website’s description of your sermon) sentiments.
The matter is pretty simple. The Catholic Church has every right to argue the case for opt-outs in situations where it does not accept public funding for its services. In all other situations, there is a democratic issue involved concerning the use of tax revenues that have been raised by a democratically elected government with specifically argued mandates. Does the Church want to set itself up as arbiter and judge in many other areas too, accepting the funds but not the wishes of those elected to govern? If it does (and it has every right to), it strikes me that there would be no other option but to make an honest resolution to provide all source of funding from a specifically private Catholic base. That is a position I look forward to hearing being articulated at length in the not too distant future.
The legislation in question was largely provoked by a series of incidents in which individuals were being discriminated against unfairly because of their sexual orientation, most notably the case of the bed and breakfast outlet in Scotland that would not provide a lesbian couple a bed for the night. Numerous other instances of unjust discrimination have been collated by the group Stonewall. Even the Church’s own teaching (1986 letter On Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Paragraph 10) appears to recognise the attendant dangers of singlingout minorities for adverse treatment where it can deepen prejudice:
“It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or action… The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”
There are frequently tensions between law and morality and this is not a new theme for Church leaders. The late Cardinal Basil Hume developed a series of criteria that allowed Catholics to make assessments of the new legislative proposals while maintaining a healthy distinction between matters of civil law and the sacred. In contrast with your remarks made on 26 November from the pulpit on the feast of Christ the King, might I refresh your memory of the 1995 Note on the Teaching of the Catholic Church Concerning Homosexual People. I quote in full:
“In any response to proposed changes in the law which are designed to eliminate injustices against homosexual people, there are a number of criteria that have to be kept in mind:
1. Are there reasonable grounds for judging that the institution of marriage and the family could be undermined by a change in the law?
2. Would society’s rejection of such a proposed change in the law be more harmful to the common good than the acceptance of such a change?
3. Does a person’s sexual orientation or activity constitute, in specific circumstances, a sufficient and relevant reason for treating that person in any way differently from other citizens?
The Cardinal goes on to write: “These are matters of practical judgement and the assessment of the social consequences must be made case by case and this without prejudice to Catholic teaching concerning homosexual acts [my underlining]. It may well be, however, that Catholics will reach diverse conclusions about particular legislative proposals even taking into account those criteria.”
Looking at his approach in this area over the years and contrasting it with the “hard-hitting” nature of what was said in Birmingham at the end of November, I fear I am not the only one who fears we have turned back in the wrong direction. It is a continued source of sadness that, when it comes to pronouncements about legislative changes, the members of the Bishops’ Conference with appropriate responsibilities are still not prepared to seek out the views of lesbians and gay Catholics through an established community such as QUEST.
Nevertheless, with regard to the specifics of the new proposals, I have no doubt that come next April, the Bill will be granted Royal Assent in Parliament. If David Cameron can now chastise his own party for the injustice of not having supported Civil Partnerships for a good proportion of the last three years, then it suggests that the argument in this area, barring one or two pockets of small resistance, is largely won.
I also am sending a copy of this letter to His Eminence, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, in his capacity as President of the Bishops’ Conference.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Dowd