Petition to Stop the Church of England Discriminating against Gay Clergy

I'm happy to announce that the petition to stop the Church of England discriminating against gay clergy with partners has now gone public. I would be most grateful if you could consider signing this if you live in the UK, thank you.

You can find the petition here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/166216

Many thanks

Anne Brooke

Petition against Gay Clergy Discrimination: Update 1

A brief update on the petition against discriminating against gay clergy in the Church of England - enough people have now signed it so the Government are checking it before it goes public, thank you. Here is the link for further details at this stage:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/166216/moderation-info


Many thanks indeed.

Anne Brooke

Message to the Church of England: Stop bullying gay people!

Well, I’ve finally gone and put my 'money' where my mouth is and made a petition – will you sign it?

My petition: Make it illegal for the C of E to discriminate against gay non-celibate clergy

The Anglican Church insists that gay clergy with partners live a celibate life if they wish to continue working as priests or bishops. This is an unfair burden on gay clergy as well as being discriminatory within the 21st century workplace.

Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/166216/sponsors/RvCTVWTcWdwh8HHdmP

I was moved to make this petition as a result of today's news that the Bishop of Grantham has said publicly that he is gay - which is great news indeed. However, in order to continue being a bishop, he has to tell the Church of England authorities that he is also celibate, even though he has been with his partner for a very long time. He may or may not be celibate, but frankly I don't care and it doesn't matter. This is grossly unfair, and nobody should be made to divulge any of their sexual practices in order to continue in their job.

After all, I don't attend a job interview and expect to be asked about my sex life. If I was, I would immediately walk out of the interview and report the company to the relevant authorities. Why should having a job in the Church of England be treated any differently? Yes, it's a vocation, but in the eyes of God, all our jobs are vocations, so we should either all be asked about our sex lives to see if we're suitable for any job, or none of us should be!

This is the 21st century, and we should protest against such arcane practices. It is not a crime, nor a sin, to be gay, in love and in a relationship. The sooner the Church of England understand this, the better.

Thank you.

Anne Brooke

Blog tours and a GLBT-friendly faith

Book News

Whilst it's not officially published till tomorrow, I'm happy to say you can now buy my latest gay literary short story Where You Hurt The Most at Riptide Publishing. Apparently pre-sales numbers have been strong (hurrah!) and I even have my first review from Tracy's Place. Many thanks, Tracy. Don't forget the blog tour for the book starts tomorrow, and doesn't end till 18 March, so there's plenty of time to enter the free giveaways competition. Good luck!

I'm also happy to say that gay thriller The Bones of Summer gained a 4-star review at Goodreads - many thanks, Stephanie. And, not to be outdone, biblical short story Dancing with Lions received a 5-star review at Amazon US - thank you, Melissa.

My most recent meditation poem is:




Meditation 651
Where time perfects the gift
life’s best offerings
cannot be hurried:

see how the hills
breathe out their fullest shape
over centuries

and the rivers
carve their quiet path
to the seas.


The Sunday haiku is:

Goldfinches flutter
and glow amongst the grasses:
our only sunshine.


Life News:

This wonderful image which I found on Facebook really sums up my approach to faith and homosexuality, and is especially apposite as it's a question I've been asked at point blank range this week. For anyone who's still wondering what my Christian stance is on gay and lesbian relationships (and who evidently hasn't been paying close attention to my blog or FB/Twitter posts), I'd like to reiterate that I don't worship a God who hates gay and lesbian relationships, or indeed transgender or transexual ones, and neither could I agree to worship a God who holds those views. Occasionally, God also even quite likes heterosexual people, though we do tend to act as cultural bullies more often, which does irritate Him hugely. Just so you know. Here I stand, as they say, and I can do no more.

Managed to get out on Friday and play some golf, which was a good laugh, partly because my game was such rubbish. I think they must be making the holes smaller or the balls bigger (um, as it were) - as my ability to sink the wretched little white beast was minimal, to say the least. Sigh.

Neighbours L, KM and I have also formed the Jubilee Street Party Committee for our road, and all systems are go for having a great celebratory lunch on the Sunday of Jubilee weekend, hurrah. We've got about 40 people coming so far, so all we need is to coordinate the food and pray very hard for the right weather. Wish us luck. I'm threatening to wear a tiara (ah, if only I had one ...) but I fear it might be a tad too much bling for Surrey. Though really, as an Essex girl, I don't actually think there could ever be too much bling ...

Yesterday's cake attempt was Boston Cream Pie, which was disastrous, my dears, disastrous. It took me about an hour to get the filling right and I was weeping like a crazy woman over the simmering pot - yes, you do have to heat it up whilst beating it. Heck, that sounds bad. In the end I thought it would never thicken up so I added a ton of cornflour to the pesky thing, and now it just tastes of cornflour. In addition, the chocolate topping didn't really harden up but eventually it was thick enough to pour onto the cake, and has just about stayed on it. Luckily, the taste of the chocolate overpowers everything else, but I will not be making this again. Life really is too short.

I was so fragile in the afternoon that K kindly took me to a garden centre, where I bought another wallflower, a senetti, some carnations, three dwarf dahlias and a foxglove. Have now planted or potted all these up, so the garden is once more brimming with colour.

This morning, K and I went along to church, where we twice had the angelic accompaniment of a mobile phone. Being English, we all carefully ignored it and carried on regardless. Which, if God was desperately trying to get his message across by phone, might of course have been a mistake. Ah well. There were also far too many chorus-type songs (bah, we say, bah!) for me, though really one would still be far too many. Give me a hymn and I'm happy.

And this afternoon, L & J from down the road have accompanied K and me to the Chandlers Open Garden event in Elstead. Where we also met S & K from the road as well, so all had a jolly nice tea and cake in the garden. This may all sound just too 1950s for words, but that's just the way things happen here, and very pleasant it was too.

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK