Madam, - We share the concern of Kevin Kerr of the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland (June 17th) and countless others at the disparaging comments about homosexual people made recently by Iris Robinson.
At Changing Attitude Ireland we are an all-island network of Protestants and Catholics, of all genders and orientations, working within our churches for the full affirmation of gays and lesbians. We feel this is what attention to the teaching and outlook of Jesus requires of us in our times.
In reply to Mrs Robinson we have publicly invited her to our next public lecture which will be on the topic "Living Sexuality and Spirituality Positively" (information on this event and about us at www.changingattitudeireland.org).
We are encouraged on this occasion by the public criticism of Mrs Robinson's comments by some clergy of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian churches. We believe that all people of good will, Christians and other theists, agnostics, secularists and atheists need to work together to confront the cruelty and wrongheadedness of homophobia.
We feel, however, that it is churlish of Mr Kerr to use these brutal and ill-informed words of one politician who is a Christian to denigrate all Christians.
Would he have objected to standing alongside Martin Luther King on the big issue of his time because he was a Baptist? Does he take exception to the statements and deeds of Archbishop Tutu because he is a churchman? Surely Mr Kerr cannot think that all homophobes and those who encourage and mobilise them are Christians?
If Mr Kerr's last sentence means that he thinks the sudden disappearance of all religion (as by the wave of a fairy's wand) would make Ireland a happier and less homophobic place, I think he is more naive than most of us. - Yours, etc,
(Canon) CHARLES KENNY, Changing Attitude Ireland, Cathedral Buildings, Donegall Street, Belfast.