Review: The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology by John Sweeney

If you are looking for a thorough history of the Church of Scientology, then this book is not for you. I'd recommend Piece of Blue Sky or Inside Scientology instead. But if you saw either of John Sweeney's Panorama documentaries and came away wondering what happened between scenes, like I did, then this is most definitely the book for you.

John Sweeney's "exposes" of Scientology turned into more a study into just what the Church does to those who try to expose it. And here, with the benefit of hindsight and evidence from the Church's side of the story, John Sweeney paints a vivid picture of a Church that is dying from within but still strong enough to lash out at those it feels oppose it.

It was fascinating reading the (allegedly real) leaked documents showing the communications between the infamous Tommy Davis and Scientology HQ. The level of abuse in those communications is not surprising to someone who has been studying the workings of the Church for a while, but the documents still leave one
feeling very uncomfortable.

It's an easy read, and makes a good way to introduce yourself to some of the basic history of Dianetics and Scientology. That history is nothing if not utterly fascinating and, occasionally, deeply disturbing.

And to get a picture of the inner workings of the Sea Org, Scientology's holy order, and to get corroboration  for what may seem some outlandish claims made by Sweeney, check out Blown For Good.

Is There A Link Between Homosexuality And Child Abuse, As Cardinal Turkson Implies?

Cardinal Peter Turkson has claimed that Africa doesn't experience the same levels of clergy abusing children as other areas because of African's firm stance against homosexuality. Not only does this show a remarkably naive understanding of the sexual abuse of children (something disturbing considering his senior position within a Church still trying to recover from sexual abuse scandals which have often been made worse by Church authorities "misunderstanding" the causes and effects of such abuse) but it also makes a not too subtle suggestion that homosexuality is a cause of child sexual abuse.

I have for many years ignored this sort of slur. But I decided that, finally, I must find out whether I'm more likely to abuse children than you, Dear Constant Heterosexual Reader.

I have trawled through the right-wing "gays are paedophiles" articles and the liberal "right-wingers are nuts" articles but I've not found a more concise summary of the studies supporting or opposing than this one from Gregory M. Herek.

Thankfully it confirms exactly what I wanted it to (hence why I like it, I suppose) and shows there is not a link between homosexuality and child abuse.

It really is concerning that the Catholic Church is still trying to avoid taking the blame for the child abuse that is still being uncovered. The Catholic Church did not abuse any children but it often engaged in covering up the abuse, protecting abusers and it continues to make compensation claims difficult for those abused. Rather than face this reality many senior figures continue to seek to blame others.

And who better than the current convenient whipping boys: gay men!

If Cardinal Turkson is representative of the calibre of the "candidates" for Pope, then things are even worse than I imagined. Unlike many liberal sorts I've no expectation of the next Pope being any better than Benedict XVI but I do hope they aren't even worse.

David Jones Is Quite Wrong

Those Tories, David Cameron merely needs to take his eye off them for a minute and one starts saying something silly.

Step forward David Jones MP, Secretary of State for Wales, who has decided not only to suggest something many anti-LGBT people believe (that same-sex parenting is, at the very least, not ideal) but to also go one step further when he says:

"I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can't do."   

"Which is not to say that I'm in any sense opposed to stable and committed same-sex partnerships."

So what he has just said there is that CLEARLY same-sex partners can't offer a "warm and safe environment" for children. This is quite a different idea to that proposed by more moderate, and thoughtful, opponents of same-sex parenting who focus on whether the life chances of children are better or worse with same-sex parents. That is a debate that has been going on for a very long time and one I'm not going to get involved with (although, full disclosure, my boyfriend's son lives with us both but I wouldn't claim to be his "parent"). But what David Jones has said is that same-sex parents can't love children as much as heterosexual parents (even adoptive ones) nor offer them safety. This is quite obviously wrong. It stinks, in fact, of the age-old insults leveled at gay men that we are all paedophiles.

He later said:

"I made the point of stressing that I was fully supportive of committed same-sex relationships. I also strongly approve of civil partnerships." 

"I did not say in the interview that same-sex partners should not adopt children and that is not my view."  

 "I simply sought to point out that, since same-sex partners could not biologically procreate children, the institution of marriage was one that, in my opinion, should be reserved to opposite sex partners."

That is categorically NOT what he said. David Jones. What a piece of work.

Is Pope Benedict XVI's Resignation A Chance For Reflection?

Pope Benedict's time as the Pope is coming to a, rather surprising, end. I won't pretend I've ever been a fan. From his linking of my lack of belief with Nazism to how down he was on my relationship with Jim I don't think we would ever have gotten along. And it wasn't just me who didn't appreciate his rather unkind words, I'd wager that most secular people weren't really that into him.

Perhaps that is a failure of his Papacy, the failure to reach out and embrace others. But perhaps that is also a failure on the part of many of us who "opposed" him on some level. He was hardly greeted with tolerance wherever he went. His time in the Hitler Youth (something that was not voluntary) is often dragged out to suggest he was some sort of Nazi (although, as we see above, messing around with Godwin's law wasn't only limited to one side of the argument!). And his anti-gay views, pro-life stance and attitude towards safe sex caused a great deal of hurt and anger.

Even during the Protest The Pope action during his state visit to the UK, a movement for which I had a great deal of mean-spirited sympathy, I expressed concerns that some were taking things a little too far. And today on Twitter the anger at his stances has lead to insults. Is this really a practical way for us to engage with the Pope or the Catholic Church itself?

I not only understand the anger and hurt from people on "my" side, I feel it too. Being treated like fascists, told you don't really love (and absolutely shouldn't love) your other half and seeing the pain some Catholic beliefs cause others is sometimes a little too much to bear with just a shrug of your shoulders and a polite smile. But we are never going to change the Catholic Church's beliefs. I'm not saying they can't be changed but they can only be changed from within. We may as well be tilting at windmills if we believe that the next Pope will somehow magically be any different in terms of belief to Pope Benedict XVI.

What we can hope to change, although it isn't completely within our control, is the language the Catholic Church uses about us and how it treats us as people. But we can only change this through engaging with the Church rather than standing around throwing insults. That does very much rely on the Church engaging as well but if we perhaps approach them in a more conciliatory way then perhaps there might be a chance for dialogue.

As shown by recent events surrounding LGBT rights and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, engaging with a church can sometimes lead to real change. I'm not suggesting anyone temper their demands or beliefs. People should still fight tooth and nail for better sex education and equal marriage. And the Catholics should be free to believe as they wish in their own spheres. But perhaps we can temper our language and start talking.

Can we at least try not to call each other names any more? We might get somewhere. Maybe. It is surely worth a try at least?

Has The Prop 8 Campaign Changed The Mormon Church For The Better?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was pivotal in the 2008 Californian campaign that successfully passed Proposition 8. Prop 8, for those who have been living under a rock, amended the Californian constitution to allow only marriages between those of the opposite-sex. This overturned a previous Californian Supreme Court decision allowing marriages between same-sex couples.

The victory of the Protect Marriage coalition, of which the LDS Church was a part, was quickly marred as LGBT campaigners turned their ire on the Church itself (its huge contribution in time and means meant it was singularly targeted as an icon of the Yes on 8 movement). The Church seemed rather taken aback by the level of anger aimed at it.

To an outside observer (someone who doesn't live in the USA nor is a Mormon) this surprise seems a little naive. You do not lightly tell someone who has gained the right to marry that you wish to take that right away, and given the history of the Latter-day Saint movement and polygamy I would've thought this would be quite obvious. But to Mormons marriage is far too important to their worldview for them to have felt they could sit out, what they perceived, a battle to protect it. Perhaps their faith blinded them to how it would make them look to those outside the faith.

The concerted campaign to punish the Latter-day Saints for Prop 8 has disappeared but it did succeed in linking the Church to Prop 8 and to anti-gay battles generally. And this bad PR came at a tumultuous time within the Church itself.

Elder Marlin K. Jensen (Church historian) said:

maybe since Kirtland, we never have had a period of, I’ll call it apostasy, like we’re having right now

The internet has finally brought questioning Mormons together and, with questions of Mormon history and several scientific issues, a growing problem with people becoming inactive in the Church has caused the leadership to start working on how it can keep people in the Church.

John Dehlin, of Mormon Stories, helped carry out a survey of the disengaged, inactive and former members of the Church to help the General Authorities find out what was going on.



Among the top 10 issues causing people to question their place in the Church is the Church's treatment of LGBT people and issues arising from its participation in Prop 8. And to make the matter worse, like many churches, there is a "LGBT friendly Mormon timebomb" waiting to explode. The LDS Church has many problems it needs to resolve and, based on its subsequent actions, it seems to have decided to try and do so.

Last year a new group called Mormons Building Bridges marched in the Utah Pride parade. 300 straight Mormons organised simply to try and combat the impression that Mormons are unloving towards LGBT people. What has caused some to dismiss them, i.e. the fact they are obviously a Church front group set up for PR reasons, is actually what makes me think they are something quite important. For the first time the Latter-day Saints are starting to realise that hurting LGBT people (both emotionally with their participation with anti-equality campaigns and physically through their attempts to cure homosexuality in the past) not only harms their public image but is hurting their bottom line: church members.

The absence of the Church from the campaigns in Washington, Minnesota, Maine and Maryland last year also speaks volumes to their changing priorities. Their recent support for anti-discrimination initiatives in Utah and now Idaho add to a growing picture of a church that is realising that dialogue may work better than opposition. Even their current response to the "Gays in the Scouts" debate is telling in its measured language.

Lest you think this is some LDS Church funded puff piece (I wish, I'm open to offers though), none of this means that the Church has changed its underlying beliefs. Its recently released "Mormons and Gays" website (I shudder at that name) might appear to be all sweetness and light but it is really more about having compassion for "broken" gays than about accepting them. This is progress of a sort though. And, taking us right back to where we began, the Church has filed an amicus brief against the Supreme Court confirming lower court's decisions to overturn Prop 8.

A change in doctrine, though, is hardly what your average LGBT American is looking for. They'd just like to be respected and left alone by a Church that has until recently been out to get them. And the LDS Church's attempts at dialogue and moderated language deserve to be lauded. If only the Catholic church would heed some of these lessons, we might be able to have a far more useful debate with them. Alas. But we can see that it is not impossible for demographics and internal opposition to help change even the most conservative organisation's attitude. That gives me some hope for the future.

"It's Just A Phase!": Sir John Stanley Isn't Completely Wrong Though

My first experience of sexual education happened in the final year of primary school. The girls got a long education session and a bag full of stuff to prepare them for puberty. Us boys, meanwhile, just got a little book. The book was mainly just pointing out what was about to happen to us physically and had an FAQ at the back. One of the questions it dealt with was something along the lines of "I've been having sexual thoughts about other boys, is this normal?"

The booklet answered that question with (and I paraphrase except the "it will pass" ending which stuck in my mind very clearly) "Yes, many boys have dreams involving other boys but this is just a natural phase and it will pass." The certainty of that answer left me in denial for 5 years. I kept telling myself it was just a phase. It'd go away and soon enough I'd start finding girls attractive. Thankfully I accepted the inevitable when I was 14 as it was pretty obvious girls weren't doing it for me. I was lucky, I know plenty of other men took far longer to acknowledge how they felt.

When my Mum and stepfather found out about my sexuality (mere weeks after I accepted it myself) my Mum sat at the kitchen table and through tears cried "It's just a phase. It's just a phase" over and over. Thankfully by the next morning things were very different, and have been ever since, but that evening of horror will remain with me forever.

So "It's just a phase" is not a concept I look upon very favourably. And my knee-jerk reaction to Sir John Stanley's reason for being against equal marriage is "BIGOT!"

"I consider that enshrining gay marriage into law will be unhelpful, and in some cases positively damaging, to young people going through the perfectly normal phase of being attracted to other young people of the same sex before arriving at a heterosexual orientation subsequently." 

But if we put aside my jerked knee, he does have a point. Young people often do go through a phase of being attracted to people of the same sex. Experimentation and what not. But where he goes wrong is in believing that, somehow, equal marriage will somehow interrupt their discovery of heterosexuality, as if all us gays just got lost somewhere in puberty on our journey to straightdom. That is not quite how it works. If one were to believe this, then all expression of homosexuality (both public and private) would need to be banned to ensure children all arrived at the "right" destination. One has to believe that you can somehow "choose" your sexuality and making homosexuality a little less odious might "encourage" people into that "lifestyle" for his point to make any sense.

When I accepted my homosexuality I had to deal with something pretty powerful; the realisation that I would never marry and have kids. You don't realise how much that version of the future is promoted to you throughout your childhood until you see it disappear. Even at 14, I felt that the future that had been carefully laid out before me by my family and by school was now destroyed. I had to remake my dreams from scratch. Equal marriage won't encourage people to be gay, but it might help some teens (and their parents) get through the shock of coming out. That can only be a good thing.

How The UK Government May End Up Creating "Gay Marriage" Rather Than #EqualMarriage

Once more I risk falling into a traditionalists view of the "homosexual activist" being forever unsatisfied by the crumbs that they throw at us. But the more I look at the Government's proposed Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, the more I think the Government is doing it wrong.

Of course I've already made plain my problems with the bill (which ignores consummation, adultery, the pension problems, opposite-sex civil partnerships and the restitution of marriages dissolved due to getting a GRC). Some of these oversights stand a good chance of getting fixed as the bill progresses through the legislative process (I'm thinking of submitting evidence to the committee myself on these points).

But there is something far more depressing about this bill and that is in its language. As our opponents like to complain, language matters. Added to the consummation and adultery issues it would appear the Government is creating two types of marriage. The way it is approaching amending the pertinent Acts is rather different to how other English speaking administrations have gone about it.

Canada's legislation defined marriage as:

Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.

Maine did it thusly:

Marriage is the legally recognized union of 2 people. Gender-specific terms relating to the marital relationship or familial relationships, including, but not limited to, "spouse," "family," "marriage," "immediate family," "dependent," "next of kin," "bride," "groom," "husband," "wife," "widow" and "widower," must be construed to be gender-neutral for all purposes throughout the law, whether in the context of statute, administrative or court rule, policy, common law or any other source of civil law.

And Maryland amended the bit in [] to read:

Only a marriage between [a man and a woman] TWO INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE NOT OTHERWISE PROHIBITED FROM MARRYING is valid in this State

This is how you do "marriage equality". You make marriage gender-neutral. Though it is tricky, it is the clearest way to make marriage between two people the same regardless of the gender of the participants. So what does our Government's bill do?

Marriage of same sex couples is lawful.

This is quite different to equal marriage. This is far more in keeping with South Africa's creation of different types of marriage, which they only continued when they created "Same-sex marriages". What becomes clear, reading through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill is that the Government is creating same-sex marriage (dare I say "gay marriage) and is quite clearly not working towards marriage equality in the way most nations and states have done in the past. Here are a few more quotes from the bill.

Effect of extension of marriage 

(1) In the law of England and Wales, marriage has the same effect in relation to same sex couples as it has in relation to opposite sex couples.

Same, same but different. Marriage rights will be equal, which is something to celebrate, but it still clearly states the difference.

Northern Ireland 

2 (1) Under the law of Northern Ireland, a marriage of a same sex couple under 30the law of England and Wales is to be treated as a civil partnership formed under the law of England and Wales (and accordingly, the spouses are to be treated as civil partners).

Dealing with Scotland and Northern Ireland differently is a necessity due to our increasingly messy constitution but again same-sex couples are not married, they are same-sex married which means they can be separated out and treated differently in other parts of the UK.

In section 8(2) (meaning of certain terms), in the definition of “guaranteed minimum pension”, after “widower’s” insert “, surviving same sex spouse’s”.

Widowers and same-sex spouses. That is what we get. Just like "Married or in a civil partnership". Same, same but different. To give it credit, the bill does look to the future and has this to say on future legislation:

(2)The following expressions have the meanings given— (a)“husband” includes a man who is married to another man; (b)“wife” includes a woman who is married to another woman; (c)  “widower” includes a man whose marriage to another man ended with the other man’s death (d)“widow” includes a woman whose marriage to another woman ended with the other woman’s death;and related expressions are to be construed accordingly. 

So yes, going forward things will become a little more equal. But it is a mess, isn't it?

The problem seems to be that the Government is terrified of all those who screamed bloody murder at the idea of husband, wife, mother, father etc. being removed from the language of law. They warned of Progenitor A and Progenitor B being used instead and made a great big song and dance about how we'd all be banned from refering to our wife as "my wife" (just like in Spain, Canada, the US states etc. where no one says that anymore [note this is sarcasm for any Coalition for Marriage supporters reading]). In an effort to compromise they are dangerously close to simply putting into law the concept of "gay marriage". Which somewhat misses the point.

Is this really what I imagined when I asked for marriage equality? No. I was expecting something more along the Canadian model. Does this mean we shouldn't support the bill? No. Just as I wished our "friends" in the House of Commons had been more honest during the Civil Partnership debates but still voted in favour, I would wish that our allies in Parliament now stated clearly these concerns exist then held their noses and voted it through (if satisfactory amendments weren't forthcoming of course). It may be a flawed bill, but it may be the best we are going to get.

But one upside is that this rather undermines the Coalition for Marriage's concerns about the Government redefining marriage. Nope, they are just making a new kind. Nothing for you guys to worry about at all.