We can all use more hugs, and a group in Scotland is employing them to make a political statement. From PinkNews:
Gay rights activists and members of the Scottish Socialist party are to travel on buses in several Scottish cities today in protest at the treatment of a gay couple on a bus earlier this month.
Same-sex couples will hold hug-ins on Stagecoach buses in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In Aberdeenshire protestors will join the couple in recreating their journey.
Altogether around 20 couples are expected to take part in the protest.
Steven Black, 16, and Mark Craig, 19, were travelling on the bus from Aberdeen to Old-meldrum, Aberdeenshire. The route is operated by Stagecoach.
The two gay teenagers were threatened with ejection from a bus and then made to sit separately after a fellow passenger complained about their behaviour.
Mr Black claims that he merely had his arm across Mr Craig's shoulder. Stagecoach remains unapologetic about the incident, and backed the actions of the driver.
As I became familiar with the GLBT community, I was struck by the restrictions they often face of showing displays of affection in public. Not crude ones, but just holding hands or rubbbing each other on the neck, not to mention kissing. Pastor Brenda and I are very comfortable doing all of those things in public, and would resent being made to feel uncomfortable with those displays, so I applaud these folks in Scotland standing up for their right to do so, and love the approach they are taking.
After all, we can all use more hugs.
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Hi I get an email from google everytime the Scottish Socialist Party is mentioned on a blog somewhere, which is why I found your site. My names nick Henderson, Im the LGBT dude from the SSP, and I wanted to say thanks for posting and its great to see that you support what we did, alot of people seem to have had a problem with it. Its great I think that religion, which I assume you are involved with, take a pro lgbt stand too! What religious denomination do you represent?
ReplyDeleteNick
Nick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by to comment. My church is an independent charismatic church and among those who actually cringe at the term "religion." I believe that religion primarily exists to find ways to exclude people from worship, where true faith looks for way to include them. Our church looks to practice faith as God taught us in the Bible. Fortunatley, He didn't teach us to exclude GLBT people.
I love what the Bishop of Liverpool published :-
ReplyDeleteHe was one of a group of bishops who wrote a letter of objection at the gay man's selection for the high-profile role, leading to him ultimately turning down the post.
In the book, A Fallible Church, Bishop Jones calls for Anglicans to "acknowledge the authoritative biblical examples of love between two people of the same gender most notably in the relationship of Jesus and his beloved [John] and David and Jonathan."
Referring to the Theology of Friendship report, he discusses John "leaning against the bosom, breast, chest of Jesus".
The Bishop also describes an "emotional, spiritual and even physical friendship" between David and Jonathan, who appear in the Old Testament books of Samuel.
When Jonathan, the son of Saul, King of Israel, first meets David after he slays Goliath against the odds, the Bible describes him as being immediately struck by the young man.
It reads: "And it came to pass, when he [David] had made an end to speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him with his own soul."
The Bishop asks: "Was their friendship sexual? Were they gay? Was at least one of them homosexual? Were they both heterosexual? Were they bisexual?"
Answering his own question, he then writes: "You assume that it is a person's sexual inclination that defines their personhood. Is it not possible to say that here are two men with the capacity to love fully, both men and women?"