Anglican Mainstream

Advertising itself as 'the UK's largest Christian arts festival', Greenbelt is heavily supported by Christian Aid, and to a lesser extent, CMS, the Church Times and the Church Urban Fund (among others).  The Mothers Union is on board as a sponsor as well. 

As my readers are aware, Greenbelt has placed Peter Tatchell of OutRage! on its lineup, a situation which deeply concerned me. See here for more.  To be fair, there is that which is deeply commendable about Peter.  But there is that which appals me as well. 

I wrote to Greenbelt with my concerns and asked to meet.  I received this response:  ‘Thanks for your email of Thursday 22nd April.  Each year Greenbelt hosts speakers with varying and sometimes contrasting views on a whole range of subjects. At any one time, we also ensure there are a range of lineup items taking place, thus allowing festival goers to pick and choose that which they feel comfortable with.’  I was given the website address and encouraged to keep up with the latest Greenbelt news.   

Since then two important developments have occurred.  First, Peter held a (too?) frank interview with the Independent  ('Outrageous and Proud', 7 May 2010) where he positively describes his 'cruising' lifestyle.  Peter easily owns up to 'cruising' — having anonymous sex in public places — in 2009, but has been too busy since then to do any.  Nevertheless he was pleased that at least Amsterdam had made some progress on that front.  (There is a public sex zone in the city's beautiful and historic Voldelpark.)   One of OutRage!'s goals is to push for similar measures here.    

If a heterosexual and her/his organization  — and scheduled speaker at Greenbelt — promoted the concept of casual heterosexual sex zones in public, would Greenbelt be worried?  I do not know. I would imagine that would be a step too far, even for Greenbelt.

If it would, then, why the discrepancy?   Though they may not approve of cruising or of OutRage!'s push to get casual gay sex out into the open — they may not want such couplings to occur on their site grounds, say — would they insist that Peter’s views on this matter are irrelevant?  Would they claim that they are of secondary importance?  Peter publicly embodies, upholds and promotes this ethic of sexual ‘liberation’.  As I have said many times now, there is a different paradigm here — I mean the role of casual sex — and Peter is simply acknowledging its reality and function in gay sexual/social networking. 

I believe Greenbelt may have become aware of a potential problem over the past few months. This awareness has taken the form of a radical profile overhaul on the Greenbelt site from Peter being portrayed as a 'militant queer rights campaigner' to one ‘driven by a love for humankind’.  I chart here their efforts to give him a spiritual make-over.  

At first, Peter was described as ‘[e]ngaging, inspiring and intriguing, [and] this interview provides much food for thought, especially if you have Peter down as just a militant queer rights campaigner. He is that, and impressivley [sic] so. But he's so much more, too.’

Something happened to the 'queer rights' Peter!  His profile underwent serious modifications to read: 'Born in Australia in 1952, Peter is best known as a controversial campaigner on issues of sexual freedom and human rights.’ 

And now, we discover the following: 'For over 40 years, Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights, democracy and global justice. Describing himself as driven by a love for humankind, Peter has been badly beaten by President Mugabe's bodyguards and by Russian neo-Nazis. A radical anti-materialist and critic of the celebrity-obsessed consumer society, he advocates quality – not quantity – of life, questioning whether ever-increasing personal income and material wealth is the key to human happiness.

As well as campaigning to complete the struggle for gay and lesbian equality in the UK, Peter also works in solidarity with human rights activists in many other countries, including Iran, Uganda, Iraq and Zimbabwe.'

But at the end of the day, one cannot compartmentalize off the sexual from the other aspects of what Peter embodies and represents; people are and operate as whole units.  Would a committed racist, pimp or Moslem with four wives and twenty-one children be put in the 2010 Greenbelt lineup if their poetry or art was unexcelled or their science was solving the problem of world hunger? 

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