Thought for the Day, 12 August 2003

Rabbi Lionel Blue

After a theology session in Amsterdam, a colleague and his wife invite me to celebrate their wedding anniversary with them. I'm touched when she says 'Lets go to a place Lionel where you can relax too.' At the gay disco I recognise an old friend and a chap asks her to dance and my colleague suddenly realises he's alone. He panics and buries his face in newspaper. As his wife dances by, she whispers, 'don't worry darling here you're only a duck among swans' and giggles. When we return to the table he's trembling- He's never before realised what it was like being in a sexual minority. I've realised that most of my life.

Later I show them the gay memorial near Rembrandt's paupers grave. It is in the form of pink triangles which gays wore under the Nazis before they were tortured. The memorial is user friendly and you're invited to sit on it while waiting for a tram. Gays were done to death in Stalin's gulags too. Authoritarians don't like them

But life is more just for gays now, though progress can be painfully slow. At the memorial I gave thanks for the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers whose courageous views on sexuality led to the legal emancipation of gay people from blackmail, provocation and prison. I also gave thanks for a colleague who offered a ceremony to me and my partner which we appreciated but declined. Having lived together faithfully for over twenty years, we already felt blessed by the Holy Spirit. .

Now some gay friends feel that if formal religion doesn't want them, they don't want it. But I persevered, even though most ministers disappeared over the horizon when I asked for realistic advice.

Society often seems intent on undermining fidelity and commitment in single sex relationships. My friend is still sometimes omitted when I'm invited and I'm sat next to a nice single girl who doesn't realise I am not single, which is unfair to all of us. You need a lot of God to support you in such situations, which is why I go on prayer retreats. At least religionists don't burn us alive any more as they once did to heretics and old women suspected of witchery. They just undermine our achievement and self respect.

But the holy spirit is blowing away centuries of prejudice. I feel it at high class suburban functions, Jim and I are no longer placed by the swinging kitchen doors along with the wisecracking au pairs. We've made it to the top table.