00:00:00.000 - 00:00:27.300

I just want to begin by asking you about your childhood, your mum, dad, siblings, just basic details about your early years. I was born in Sri Lanka, as I mentioned, or Ceylon as it then was, but came to England when I was two years old with my parents and older sister and brother.

00:00:29.180 - 00:00:50.580

My parents had both been teachers at one time or another, but for most of the time that I remember, my father was a journalist and my mother a teacher. We settled in London and that's really been my home city for most of my life. Okay.

00:00:54.940 - 00:01:08.720

Continuation of recording as we have moved seats owing to noise. Sabi, you were talking about that you moved over from Sri Lanka to London and started talking about your parents. Yes.

00:01:08.980 - 00:01:31.900

My parents were both Christians, committed Anglicans, and I became involved in the church as a young child. Obviously, my understanding of Christianity has developed considerably as I've grown older, but it's always been a part of my life, though obviously I had to make my own

00:01:31.900 - 00:01:55.340

choices. And growing up in a fairly diverse city, and having come from a country with a fair amount of cultural diversity where the majority of people weren't Christians, I have had to decide for myself, in terms of my faith, what my beliefs were and my commitment.

00:01:56.280 - 00:02:13.500

But when I was just reaching adolescence, I got confirmed and have remained, I suppose, a churchgoer ever since. Did you have a living faith as a child? Yes, I did.

00:02:13.500 - 00:02:37.300

I think as a child, one's experience of God is, it can be quite direct in a way, but obviously also quite unsophisticated and naive in other ways. And as one grows older, certainly my experience, there's a need to have space for asking difficult questions, sometimes for doubt.

00:02:37.300 - 00:03:05.020

And there have been times when it's been harder than other times when, I suppose, God's presence has seemed much more vivid. But I think that's been a core part of my life ever since I can remember, and I suppose has helped to shape who I am, though obviously I fall short of the ideals.

00:03:05.020 - 00:03:26.840

And so it also remains a constant challenge, the notion of being perfectly loving and seeking perfect justice in a world that's so imperfect, and with a self who also is imperfect, remains part of that challenge of Christianity and living out the values of the Sermon on the Mount.

00:03:28.180 - 00:03:45.640

Indeed. For some of us it's more of a challenge than others. So school, where did you go to school? At first I lived in West London, so that was where I went to primary school in Ealing.

00:03:46.640 - 00:04:09.300

Then I moved to North-East London with my family and ended up in Hackney, while going to school across the border in Islington. So I did all my secondary schooling there, at what was originally a grammar school, which then turned comprehensive.

00:04:10.180 - 00:04:25.640

Okay, and you were involved at church as well during that time? I was, yes. There was quite an active youth group as a result of imaginative leadership by one or two of the clergy.

00:04:27.560 - 00:04:49.940

And I think that has been quite important in terms of broadening my horizons around faith, as well as having parents who were people who thought and asked questions and read books, and had been involved in a youth fellowship in St Olas, as it was, and later were quite active in the life of the church.

00:04:50.440 - 00:05:13.400

So I suppose I was always around the idea that it was okay to ask questions. There wasn't an expectation that you would necessarily have to swallow the Bible wholesale, or somebody else's version of the Bible, I should say. A received wisdom about what the Bible says, that often is not what the Bible actually

00:05:13.400 - 00:05:39.000

says, but it's just often assumed. That having been said, I also grew up during a time when there were a lot of isms in society. I mean, there still are, but racism was probably more overt, and sexism, and there wasn't that much legal protection, and attitudes to disabled people were pretty crass a lot

00:05:39.000 - 00:05:57.500

of the time. And the treatment of LGBT people was appalling. I mean, when I was a small child, it was illegal for men to have sex in England. And even throughout a lot of my childhood, it still was illegal in Scotland, and Northern

00:05:57.500 - 00:06:14.440

Ireland, and so on. There was no employment protection, or whatever. And there was a wide public assumption that it was wrong, that there was something fundamentally wrong with LGBT relationships, that it was either sick, or sinful, or just immature,

00:06:14.440 - 00:06:43.240

that immaturity consisted of having a heterosexual relationship and heterosexual feelings. So that was, I suppose, a given in the world in which I grew up. And there weren't positive images of LGBT people on TV or in the media. It was a very uniformly heterosexual sort of world.

00:06:43.240 - 00:06:52.440

Or so it seemed. Though there were the beginnings of a gay rights movement and feminist movement that challenged some of that orthodoxy. Yeah.

00:06:53.180 - 00:07:21.360

When did you become aware of having a sexual identity? Well, I suppose I became aware that my sexuality was different from that of the other girls at school when I was about 12. And they were raving about the heartthrobs or boy bands of the day, David Cassidy, or

00:07:21.360 - 00:07:41.920

Donny Osmond, or the Bay City Rollers, whom you may have heard of. I have. I even know the little song. And so the other girls would be very excited about that sort of thing, or sometimes excited

00:07:42.440 - 00:07:59.880

about the schoolboys in the boys' school up the road. And I didn't really get it. And it dawned on me that I was different. And if I were watching Top of the Pops, that the singers whom I might fancy might be female

00:07:59.880 - 00:08:25.780

rather than male. And this was obviously an awkward thing, because there was a kind of expectation that you would fancy boys. And so when you were growing up in that setting, at school and in the world around, I mean

00:08:25.780 - 00:08:49.120

likewise in the church at that time, there was an expectation you'd grow up and be a good Christian girl and maybe marry a nice Christian boy. Or if you were very daring, you might marry a boy who wasn't Christian, I suppose. But there was definitely no discussion about would you meet another nice Christian girl

00:08:49.120 - 00:09:03.260

or non-Christian girl and go out together. I mean, it was just not talked about. So this was a difficult thing. And at first I was very secretive.

00:09:03.260 - 00:09:17.260

It took me some time to get my head around it myself. I mean, for a bit I thought maybe I was just about attracted enough to boys to make a goal of an opposite-sex relationship. Because, I mean, I'm not...

00:09:17.800 - 00:09:26.520

I can't remember which way the Kinsey scale goes, but I'm not 100%. And I suppose with the... Zero's 100% straight. Yes.

00:09:28.800 - 00:09:45.240

Seven's raving gay. And X is... I think that's asexual, actually. So I suppose I was just in adolescence with hormones raging.

00:09:46.160 - 00:10:03.640

I was thinking maybe I'm just about enough attracted to members of the opposite sex to make a goal of acting heterosexual. And then as adolescence died away, I realised this would be not a very good idea and it wasn't likely to work very well on a sustained basis.

00:10:08.880 - 00:10:36.120

So I realised that I would have to make my future choices on the basis of who I actually was. Now, by this stage, there was an increasing amount of information available in libraries and bookshops and so on. It was quite difficult.

00:10:36.260 - 00:11:02.080

It required a certain amount of nerve to go into the local library and look up books on sexuality. And there was still the residue of this idea that sexuality could be changed. So there were all these descriptions of fairly drastic attempts to change people's orientation. But there were also one or two more realistic books.

00:11:02.220 - 00:11:15.980

And so I got a more of a sense of who I was and the fact that it wasn't such a terrible thing. And I did know one or two adults who were out, LGBT people who were involved in some political type activities that my parents were as well. So that was helpful.

00:11:16.680 - 00:11:44.780

But it still took me a lot of doing to get to a point where I felt comfortable with who I was. And at first I assumed I would have to spend all my life being celibate. And then as I did more thinking, I came to change, thinking and reading, I came to change my views. And by the time I was in my late teens, I had concluded that it was acceptable

00:11:46.120 - 00:12:19.300

and could be a way of living a virtuous life, a life lived in companionship with God. To move towards having a loving and committed relationship with a member of the same sex. And had you told your parents about your feelings? Did you come out to your parents? I had mentioned my feelings to my parents briefly at one point when I think I was about 14.

00:12:19.600 - 00:12:43.300

But it was clear they weren't particularly happy with it. And at that point I was still maybe hoping to turn straight or straight-ish or act straight. So the point was then kind of kicked into the long grass. But then I decided because my parents had got to the point when my mother had taken early retirement

00:12:43.940 - 00:13:20.440

or was about to take early retirement and they were going to spend a lot of their lives over the next few years in Sri Lanka. That I really wanted to make sure that their feelings for me would remain unchanged. Or basically discuss that with them and find out whether being who I was would result in estrangement. So I talked to them about it. I think by that stage I was about 18 and had done a fair amount of reading.

00:13:20.440 - 00:14:01.420

I was at university which had given me a newfound freedom. And so I could begin to explore a bit more in terms of going to films or buying books or buying newspapers. And they made it clear at that point that they still thought that it would be better if I could not engage in same-sex partnerships. They were, like many others, people who took part in a journey of change over the years to becoming very supportive.

00:14:01.420 - 00:14:29.580

But at first, talking about the end of the 70s, early beginning of the 1980s, they still held what was a conventional view. They made it clear that they still loved me and that I wouldn't be rejected which was a relief. And did they go back to Sri Lanka? They did, yes. And they spent many of the subsequent years there a lot of the time.

00:14:29.580 - 00:14:53.820

Though they came back to Britain periodically, Britain having been their home as well for many years. And two of their children and increasing numbers of their grandchildren living here. So there I was at university studying chemical engineering. Where was that? Which uni?

00:14:53.820 - 00:15:23.280

University College London, which again was quite a good place to stay in London because it was and is a city with a large number of LGBT people. Even then, though not in the engineering faculty. Was it lots of men with black jeans and white trainers? It was certainly lots of men but they didn't all wear black jeans and white trainers.

00:15:23.280 - 00:16:02.160

The standard dress in engineering at Southampton Uni, which specialises in engineering, so there was lots of these men. So university, College London, you were out as a lesbian? Not at first. When I started I was still in the closet and still working through my feelings. I came out in the final year. I had been thinking about my situation and I realised that in a course that was about 90% male,

00:16:02.520 - 00:16:31.960

I might be the only lesbian in my department, possibly, statistically. And that it would be probably harder for a man to come out in that setting than for a woman. So if anybody was going to come out, it would probably be me, so I might as well go ahead and do it. You have a very rational view towards all these things.

00:16:34.820 - 00:16:53.080

It's a typical engineering approach. Statistics has a lot to answer for. In my final year at university, I took the plunge. Before that I had mentioned it to my closest friend, one of the guys on the course.

00:16:54.340 - 00:17:11.320

Was he coming on to you? No, but he was my study partner. We used to study together. Did you try to put him off? No, it was just that the topic had come up in conversation about an ex-girlfriend of a friend of his.

00:17:11.640 - 00:17:34.120

I wondered whether he knew that I had guessed that I was lesbian. I didn't want to seem that I had bottled out of saying it, so I came out to him and he was fine about it. That was encouraging and supportive as well. In my final year, I took the plunge.

00:17:34.320 - 00:18:00.180

I told my course mates in the chemical engineering department. I became the only LGBT person in the whole of the faculty, probably. There were others around, but they weren't exactly open about it. We joined the Gay Soc, which at that point was mainly art students.

00:18:01.080 - 00:18:26.680

We came out in the Anglican Society, which worked very closely with the Christian Union. It was fairly evangelical, but I was very lucky. Partly because there was a chaplain who was quite an open-minded evangelical. While people were rather taken aback, I didn't get shunned or any of the very unpleasant experiences that people have sometimes had.

00:18:27.820 - 00:19:00.600

It was slightly unnerving, but there was a discussion about sexuality. It was one of those discussions that you have at Christian unions or student Christian societies about one ethical issue or another. In the course of that, I came out. There were no negative repercussions, though it certainly gave rise to a bit of thinking about how to respond to that.

00:19:00.720 - 00:19:18.500

Because a real person was gay. That's right, yes. What happened after university? I then tried to get a job in engineering and failed.

00:19:18.760 - 00:19:48.980

I became a lab technician and wasn't very good at it. I did various bits and pieces of work and ended up in the voluntary sector. This is a few years later, in 1985. Tracking back to the time when I was finishing university, I had also begun coming out more generally in church circles.

00:19:51.240 - 00:20:20.300

I did so in my home congregation. I discussed what to do with the rector, who suggested not simply writing a coming out article, but putting it in another context. I did a review of a report that had been written by a working party headed by the Bishop of Gloucester, a 1979 report. I did the review in 1982, I think, when I was about 20.

00:20:21.340 - 00:20:52.560

It did advise that, in certain circumstances, it should be acceptable for people to form committed same-sex relationships. This was too radical a conclusion at the time, so the report got published but not taken further forward. It was possibly the first in a number of reports that were supported. There was an early report in 1970 that I've never seen because I don't think that was published at all.

00:20:53.120 - 00:21:24.840

By that time, there was a fairly strong surge towards greater acceptance. There was also very strong resistance from those opposed. In the course of this review, I mentioned the fact that as a homosexual myself, I put it in and carried on with the review. I very nervously waited for the reaction from my congregation.

00:21:26.780 - 00:21:43.560

It was surprisingly positive. I think some people were simply disbelieving because they'd known me for several years. You appeared to be entirely normal. Exactly, yes. I didn't fit the stereotype. I was a real person.

00:21:44.440 - 00:22:13.500

I'd gone to the youth group and taught Sunday school and attended church and seemed enthusiastic about Christianity. That was an opening up of more dialogue in my congregation. There were some people who were more or less known to be gay. It just hadn't been made explicit in quite that way.

00:22:13.980 - 00:22:39.700

At that time, there was a strong surge towards the belief that if you were in a position where you could come out, you ought to do that. It would make it easier for other people and help to change public attitudes. This is something I still think is preferable if people are in a safe enough space to do this. Obviously, that's something that people have to think about carefully.

00:22:40.460 - 00:22:54.600

Also, based on their circumstances, anybody who are their dependents. At that point, there was a risk of people losing their children. For instance, in custody cases, if they were known to be lesbian. That happened very often.

00:22:55.400 - 00:23:16.260

It was very risky for some people to come out. But for those for whom it wasn't so risky, it was a way of opening up that dialogue. So, I did. I also joined LGCM at the age of 20 and quite quickly became active in it.

00:23:17.800 - 00:23:50.740

I unearthed a copy of the first article I wrote for the LGCM newsletter or magazine back in 1982. By that stage, apparently, I was already representing LGCM on Christian organisations for social, political and economic change. We weren't a full member, but we had observer status. So, I began my volunteering.

00:23:51.440 - 00:24:15.980

Over the years, I've done various bits and pieces for LGCM. Including a certain amount of coalition type work with other groups. And later acting as a link with some of the movements for social change going on more widely in society. Fast forwarding again to 1985.

00:24:16.940 - 00:24:50.560

That was the year that I had responded to an advertisement that intrigued me. For the first set of workers to be part of a black, lesbian and gay centre project. Which had got funding from the Greater London Council. I applied and was pleased, if maybe slightly apprehensive, to be appointed as an outreach and development worker for BLGC.

00:24:51.720 - 00:25:13.100

It was a pioneering project. Working with people of largely African Asian and Latin American descent in London. Obviously, that was quite a few people in a city the size of London. But generally a very, very closeted population.

00:25:13.600 - 00:25:32.680

Because people already felt isolated in many cases. Or stigmatised or marginalised because of their ethnicity. And they didn't want to lose their family support. And attitudes to sexuality generally were still quite negative at that time.

00:25:32.880 - 00:25:47.280

And discrimination was rife. So the centre was meant to provide a safe space. But also help to change public attitudes. And I worked at BLGC from 1985 to 1994.

00:25:48.020 - 00:26:08.600

I had also become involved in working for change at a local level. Trying to get equal opportunities policies introduced through local authorities. And became very active in Haringey in particular. Which was where BLGC was based initially.

00:26:09.540 - 00:26:31.580

So I helped to set up a Haringey lesbian and gay unit. And a sub-committee to which I was elected. On which I served for some years. This was a time when local government was locked in conflict with the national government.

00:26:32.260 - 00:26:56.640

That was bent on transforming society in a way that many of us would think quite negative. So it was the era of Thatcherism. There was a strong backlash against the move towards equal opportunities. And so in Haringey we found ourselves in the eye of the storm.

00:26:57.240 - 00:27:15.660

As the backlash gathered momentum. It was chosen as one of the examples of the things that so-called loony lefty councils do. Various statements that didn't have very much relation to reality. Were made about what was going on in the Houses of Parliament.

00:27:15.660 - 00:27:35.040

And the government moved towards introducing section 28. The notorious clause 28. So how did you support yourself when you were doing all this? Obviously you were in the voluntary sector for a long time.

00:27:35.140 - 00:27:48.180

Yes, I was a paid worker. A part-time worker at BLGC. It was fairly tight money-wise. We weren't paid at a very high rate.

00:27:48.400 - 00:28:12.480

So being paid as part-timers there wasn't a huge amount of money. But I scraped by. And in 1986, towards the end of 1986. I had begun a relationship with another voluntary sector worker.

00:28:12.840 - 00:28:26.760

Who later went on to work in local government. And who for a while worked for Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group. Vijaya Tara. At that time known as Sharon Smith.

00:28:29.540 - 00:28:42.040

And who retained that name, Sharon Smith. In her writing subsequently. For the rest of her life. And we had a service of blessing in early 1988.

00:28:42.580 - 00:28:51.620

In the church hall. So we had the support of quite a number of people in our congregation. My parents were there. And quite a lot of family members.

00:28:52.200 - 00:29:09.940

And her two sisters. The service was led by a minister of North London Metropolitan Community Church. So it was I suppose a bit of an Anglican fudge. In that there was an Anglican presence.

00:29:10.160 - 00:29:19.400

But it was led by an MSCC minister. Or we could say it was an ecumenical approach. But it was a really exciting occasion. So it's an ecumenical fudge.

00:29:22.320 - 00:29:33.000

But that was pretty good. That's quite radical for the time. I think it was also probably regarded as rather odd. In lesbian feminist circles in those days.

00:29:33.200 - 00:29:58.820

Because I think there was this idea that monogamous long term relationships. Especially marriage were a kind of hetero patriarchal ploy. But it was a very moving and meaningful ceremony. Though later her doubts about Christianity resurfaced.

00:29:59.680 - 00:30:10.220

She had been brought up in very evangelical settings. And quite homophobic ones. And she later became a Buddhist. Though very supportive of Christianity.

00:30:10.760 - 00:30:23.080

And with a strong spiritual sense. And understanding of the Bible. How long were you together? We were together for 24 years.

00:30:23.240 - 00:30:31.960

Until she died of cancer in 2011. That's quite recent. That's a long time. Respect.

00:30:33.680 - 00:30:41.080

We've got our 20th wedding anniversary next year. No this year. It's 2016 isn't it? Yes it is. Congratulations in advance.

00:30:41.420 - 00:30:52.880

Thank you. Trying to escape with three kids will be a challenge. But I'm going to do it. So LGCM, that was under Richard I guess was it?

00:30:52.960 - 00:31:02.760

Yes it was. What was your relationship like with him? Pretty good I think. I mean Richard doesn't do things by...

00:31:02.760 - 00:31:13.460

He appears to be a Marmite person. So you like Marmite? Yes. I have a lot of respect for Richard.

00:31:15.400 - 00:31:49.320

At times his approach may be blunter than might be best for achieving results. I don't always agree with him on strategy and tactics and so forth. Maybe on some issues he might have different kinds of approaches. His awareness might be something that has grown and developed with a lot of people.

00:31:49.500 - 00:32:27.700

In a number of ways he provided an important role model of somebody who had stood up very clearly for his principles. And experienced the hardship of having his vocation blocked as a result of being honest and not willing to play the game of the ecclesiastical authorities. That isn't in any way to judge people who felt that their calling was so important to them that they just had to sidestep the oppressive situation that existed. But I think it would have been...

00:32:27.700 - 00:33:01.300

Maybe the history of the church would have been different if a lot more people, including heterosexual people, who believed that it was okay to be in same-sex partnerships but wouldn't say so in public and who held high positions in the church, had been up front about what they actually believed instead of saying behind closed doors that it was alright for a vicar to be gay and even quite supportive of the relationship but refused to say any of that in public.

00:33:01.840 - 00:33:24.120

And so I think in the church there was a culture that grew up that could be quite supportive at an individual level but could be quite destructive collectively and undermined aspects of mission and ministry. And Richard took a fairly strong stance against that. As I said, I think maybe my ways of campaigning have changed and developed over the years.

00:33:25.700 - 00:33:45.060

But I am also grateful to him for the opportunities to get involved. There were people who got me involved at quite an early age in more secular campaigning, through Islington and Haringey Gay Group, for instance, and who were willing to allow a fairly young me to take on quite a lot of responsibility.

00:33:45.660 - 00:34:12.240

But also within LGCM, I was willing and eager. While I didn't get involved in a lot of office stuff, I suppose I helped to maybe put together one or two LGCM responses to some of the things that were going on, especially in wider society around equality and challenging discrimination and how this was something that Christians should support, even if they had different views on sexuality.

00:34:13.240 - 00:34:38.220

Yeah. What was your take on how women existed within LGCM in the 80s and 90s? Because that's come up as a bit of an issue with some of the people that I've talked to. I think in LGCM, definitely it started off as very male-dominated,

00:34:38.220 - 00:35:21.640

and that has been an issue over the years and presented something of a challenge. Even though some of the men who were most active in LGCM rejected the overt sexism that's present in some gay Christian men, that section of the gay male community who are quite religious but strongly against women having positions of leadership in the church and who see it as a bit of an all-male sanctuary for themselves but at the expense of women.

00:35:21.640 - 00:35:49.140

And I think LGCM at a fairly early stage differentiated itself to some extent, or certainly the office, from that. But that was still an issue in sections of the gay male community, though a lot of those were very closeted as well. They didn't want to rock the boat. It was fine if people in the know guessed that father was not entirely heterosexual,

00:35:49.320 - 00:36:16.760

but father couldn't possibly be seen to be doing anything that didn't fit in with respectability. And certainly that was an issue. But certainly within LGCM, there was a challenge around women's role. That having been said, for me in some ways it was perhaps less of a problem,

00:36:16.940 - 00:36:42.820

because in white feminist circles I didn't feel any more central, I felt as marginalised, and perhaps more than in a largely white male setting. Because I think there was that sort of tendency for sections of the women's movement to have this idea that being a white middle-class woman, or especially a white middle-class lesbian,

00:36:43.260 - 00:37:11.040

was the most oppressed that anybody could ever be, and also gave you a certain kind of aura of sanctity, so you could be quite harsh and judgmental and so on. We could all be harsh and judgmental, and at that time some of the kinds of ways that people argued were pretty over-the-top. Probably quite common in social movements for change.

00:37:12.260 - 00:37:40.580

But I suppose all women's Christian groups were certainly not a natural setting for me either, because that would have felt maybe even more detached from who I was. So I suppose I would have been moving in fairly different sets of circles, where I might have felt more or less at home for different reasons.

00:37:41.900 - 00:38:17.380

So late 80s, I guess if you're working within the BME community, you would have seen the impact of HIV-AIDS? Yes. It was happening by the mid-80s, and it was pretty appalling. At BLGC, some of our members, including some of our very active members, were affected. And you can remember attending funerals.

00:38:19.840 - 00:38:46.200

I suppose we also got drawn quite heavily into sharing information. There was also a strong community response to the spread of HIV, and that's, I think, one of the things that was very positive about the LGBT community at that time. Well, I suppose I should say it was largely a gay community and lesbian community.

00:38:46.660 - 00:39:22.900

Bisexual people tended to be marginalised, and transgender people marginalised more, if not invisible often in those settings. But in what there was to that community, there was a fairly vigorous response a lot of the time. And I think it did save quite a lot of lives, probably, that the networks, helplines and so on kicked into action.

00:39:22.900 - 00:39:50.960

You can remember, if people were coming out, one of the things that we would ask them was whether they knew about safer sex. They just got used to talking to various strangers about safer sex and handing out condoms in clubs or whatever. It was kind of all hands on deck to try to spread awareness, and trying to find ways of doing it in a culturally appropriate way to reach BME communities.

00:39:52.200 - 00:40:32.580

And, in fact, I was seconded, or an arrangement was made for me to work on my contract with Brent HIV Centre for a while in the early 1990s, in terms of awareness-raising in particular. So that was, again, an opportunity to take action and maybe learn something about the ways of awareness-raising within minority communities. But it was quite a difficult time, because there was so much loss.

00:40:34.580 - 00:41:03.460

And I suppose it was also a huge impact then when drugs began to appear that seemed to haunt the disease in its tracks, or haunt the cluster of conditions in their tracks for many people. But in the initial period it was a time of a lot of hardship, which was made worse by social attitudes that were very judgemental.

00:41:04.080 - 00:41:25.720

There was also a certain level of stigmatisation that went on around gay men in particular, but also around black communities, African communities. And so people reacted in various ways, like some people in African communities trying to distance themselves from gay men, or probably vice versa.

00:41:26.320 - 00:42:00.580

It didn't always result in a lot of solidarity, but there were instances of solidarity and mutual support as well. And where were you worshipping at this time? I was worshipping mainly at a local church in Stoke Newington. And I also occasionally went to North London Metropolitan Community Church.

00:42:00.880 - 00:42:25.500

I think one or two other MCCs, but mainly the North London one, every so often, which was also a source of support. I suppose my spirituality is more Middle Anglican, if there is such a thing. I was quite active in other Christian settings. I was a member of the Jubilee Group, which was a mainly Anglo-Catholic, fairly radical organisation,

00:42:26.120 - 00:43:10.320

in which Ken Leach was prominent, who preached at the service of Exodus, when LGCM got expelled from said Botolph's old gate as a result of the Diocese of London leaders' actions. And Rowan Williams was also involved in the Jubilee Group, which might have been how I first met him. It wasn't huge, but it was fairly influential and was one of those gatherings that were generally fairly LGBT supportive,

00:43:11.580 - 00:43:26.700

that helped to play a part in changing attitudes and challenging discriminatory views and practices. You do a lot of freelance writing. Yes. I googled you.

00:43:29.180 - 00:43:49.440

I know you've written bits and pieces for The Guardian, for Church Times, stuff like that. When did that start? Just tell me a bit about your writing and what you seek to do through your writing. I think I've always done a certain amount of writing.

00:43:51.800 - 00:44:15.840

Partly because my family was the sort of family where you were encouraged to write if you wanted to. It was a setting where others wrote as well. My dad wrote books and then when my mum had retired, both my parents were involved in human rights activism and they wrote things about that and about radical theology.

00:44:16.040 - 00:44:42.760

So my mum wrote sort of Asian feminist theology. I suppose I had been involved even earlier as a schoolgirl in writing poetry. The first thing I got published in terms of an actual collection of work was a collection of poems by a local publisher, Centreprise, in 1979 when I was 17.

00:44:44.940 - 00:45:06.740

I've been involved in writing, I suppose, practically all my life. I've also had to write a certain amount work-wise. I've taken opportunities to write in the context of work. At BLGC we had a newsletter and after I left that I worked for a council for voluntary service

00:45:06.740 - 00:45:31.180

and then for a social enterprise where I still work part-time. Largely around user and public involvement in health and social care and writing has been a part of my work there. I should probably mention that from the mid-90s I switched to worshipping most of the time

00:45:31.180 - 00:46:04.180

at another Anglican church closer to where my late partner's home was. But I still worship at the church down the road from me some of the time and both of those are fairly supportive and positive congregations. Writing about faith and its implications and so on

00:46:05.700 - 00:46:25.400

and being published was something that began to happen in the mid to late 2000s on a much greater scale. I became involved in Ecclesia, which is a sort of radical think tank which has a website and runs events and has begun publishing books.

00:46:26.160 - 00:46:39.500

Yes, I've heard you've written a book. Yes, I've written just my book, Sexuality, Struggle and Saintliness Same Sex Love in the Church has just been published. It was launched last night by Ecclesia.

00:46:39.860 - 00:46:50.880

Not on Graham Norton next week. Unfortunately not. I have done the odd radio programme. I think I might have been interviewed by Graham Norton when he was on

00:46:51.440 - 00:47:15.600

Far More Obscure on BBC 5 or something, though I'm not quite sure. I've done Odds and Ends through campaigning and I suppose that's helped me to develop my confidence about speaking in public. But certainly writing and expressing myself on important issues.

00:47:17.400 - 00:47:29.600

But writing is easy in some ways. It gives you a chance to get edited. So if you've been over the top or you're not quite sure of your facts and you look at something and you realise you need to fact check

00:47:29.600 - 00:47:44.560

it gives you a bit more time to do that. So I think around 2007 or perhaps 2008 I also began getting pieces published by Guardian, Comment is Free though that doesn't happen very much these days.

00:47:45.600 - 00:48:10.700

It might in fact have been prompted by I think the first piece might have been prompted by the Lambeth conference. And there's frustration at the tendency in the Anglican Communion so often to focus on worries about churches being too positive about same-sex partnerships

00:48:10.700 - 00:48:27.420

while ignoring blatant disregard for the human rights of LGBT people and sometimes murderous violence. So I started writing in that setting as well. I've also written more generally on human rights issues.

00:48:28.200 - 00:48:54.980

So sometimes about more domestic type issues violence in the home, hate crime etc. but also about human rights in Sri Lanka and beyond. And some of my writing has been about that and issues of poverty, homelessness and so forth.

00:48:55.440 - 00:49:15.820

But I've also written extensively on sexuality and in fact my writings for Ecclesia have served as the basis for much of the book that has just been published but these have been pulled together and updated and re-edited and some additional material brought in.

00:49:18.160 - 00:49:33.180

Have you got any other projects you're involved in writing-wise? Anything else in the pipeline? I write a range of different things. There are various things I'd like to get published

00:49:33.180 - 00:49:48.840

but the challenge is sometimes finding a publisher who's willing to take a chance on a book or a concept. And even getting published in the newspapers or online these days can be quite hard.

00:49:49.120 - 00:50:04.840

There's quite a lot of competition and pitching successfully can be difficult. So I'll have to see what happens and what emerges and what opportunities arise.

00:50:05.460 - 00:50:31.960

I do write fiction and occasionally poetry as well as non-fiction but what's been published in recent years has been mainly non-fiction on various social issues and very often the relationship of faith to society and issues of justice, peace, compassion and so forth.

00:50:33.280 - 00:50:49.800

I suppose what's also prompted me to write sometimes has been reading things and thinking that's not the way it was or there's something wrong with this argument or there's an assumption here and I'm not at all sure that that's correct

00:50:49.800 - 00:51:09.560

and then being prompted to look more deeply into that and so that'll probably also be one of the things that influences me in years to come in terms of what I write about. So, for instance, part of the prompt for the first section of my book

00:51:09.560 - 00:51:30.180

has been this idea that changes in views around sexuality and faith are something that have just happened in very recent years and they go against the grain of the Bible and Christian tradition and they're simply a response to changes in culture and society

00:51:31.060 - 00:51:47.920

and the church, which is somehow regarded as separate from all of these has to work out what it thinks about these changes in society and of course the church, the Christian community is very much within society and has influenced society as well

00:51:48.460 - 00:52:06.140

even if some church leaders don't seem to recognise that when lay people and parish clergy or chaplains do things we also are part of the church it's not just what comes from the central councils of the Vatican

00:52:06.140 - 00:52:26.640

or Lambeth Palace or whatever that is what the church is about and I think in terms of campaigning I was elected onto the board of LGCM I think in the early 2000s

00:52:29.340 - 00:52:45.540

and one of the things I've tried to encourage or certainly that I believe and maybe has been an impetus for my actions is that we are the church as well it's getting people out of that headset that the church is appalling

00:52:45.540 - 00:52:57.820

why should we stay in the church? I understand that feeling sometimes when people are really badly treated in a particular congregation or by a particular leader and they may just feel the need to get out for safety's sake

00:52:57.820 - 00:53:13.560

but we are the church as well we are as much part of the church as those who would exclude us and I think it's important for us to claim our heritage claim our birthright and share the good news

00:53:13.560 - 00:53:26.280

if others aren't sharing the good news I'm not talking about necessarily nobbling people in the street and asking them if they've been saved by the blood of the lamb which may scare people and put them off more than it attracts them

00:53:28.020 - 00:53:45.820

but at least just being a Christian and present so that people know that there are a few that we are around and we're fairly ordinary people and we're not all out there trying to stop any shift

00:53:45.820 - 00:54:01.420

towards greater acceptance and progress and maybe that our faith has helped to make us better people than we might otherwise be What do you see as the future of the Church of England?

00:54:03.380 - 00:54:17.220

The Church of England is facing a challenging time as with a lot of churches and it's quite hard to predict what the future will be obviously church membership has been dropping quite heavily

00:54:17.220 - 00:54:35.780

and church attendance in a lot of churches worldwide and there are some countries where there are quite high attendance numbers but again it's not quite clear how much that's because the church provides certain kinds of social services, companionship

00:54:35.780 - 00:54:55.840

and some protection in places where there are high levels of communal strife and how much it is because people actually feel that this is something they want to affirm and which is spiritually important to them so I think it's a challenging time for churches in general

00:54:55.840 - 00:55:08.480

and maybe time for the church to do a certain amount of rediscovery of what it's about developing a broader view of God's realm the kingdom of heaven or commonwealth of the divine

00:55:08.480 - 00:55:29.140

whatever terminology one uses something that takes into account issues of sexuality and gender and so forth but also a broader vision of what it is what we think our potential is as humans

00:55:29.140 - 00:55:49.400

and how we're going to go about it how we're going to protect our planet and our environment from destruction by the mistakes and misdeeds of our species and how we're going to move to a place where more people feel loved and affirmed

00:55:49.400 - 00:56:15.300

and able to live out our calling and rule in the likeness of Christ We're on the hour so I'm just going to draw it to a close is there anything I've missed out asking you that you think was perhaps something you wanted to mention? I suppose one thing that I might say is that

00:56:15.300 - 00:56:34.020

I have been quite heavily influenced in some ways by being not European in origin and though I've spent most of my life here there has been a movement in churches in many countries

00:56:34.020 - 00:56:53.080

to try to disentangle the essence of Christianity from things that were introduced for instance as part of the Europeanisation the colonial thinking now sometimes people who want to challenge homophobia

00:56:53.080 - 00:57:13.980

shy away from it if they think they may be upsetting church leaders in Africa or parts of Asia or whatever and they think that that's somehow being anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist whereas in fact throughout the world homophobia is a problem

00:57:13.980 - 00:57:32.100

and in many countries it was institutionalised through conquest but also I think there's been a more healthy type of decolonisation of decolonising one's mind and trying to work out which things are really part of Christianity

00:57:32.100 - 00:57:45.340

and which are about reinforcing society's relationships of domination and subservience whatever they are and so I think that's been of value to me and I've gained a lot from my parents

00:57:45.340 - 00:57:58.780

and others who've been working on those issues in different ways, different places but just rethinking and not taking for granted what Christianity is not assuming that the Holy Spirit only works through people who call ourselves Christians

00:57:58.780 - 00:58:14.540

which I think really goes against the evidence and isn't what's portrayed in the Bible and having the humility to recognise that sometimes people who are not Christians are leading lives we could learn a lot from

00:58:14.540 - 00:58:31.260

and that God's wisdom might be being shared with those people who might sometimes be more open than the churches so I think that's something that maybe Christians need to revisit in terms of the Church of England and other churches in the West moving forward

00:58:31.260 - 00:58:44.900

rather than just coming in thinking we're sharing God with others as if God were unable to work without us we have a very important role to play but also sometimes that's just spotting where God is at work already

00:58:45.540 - 00:58:55.520

and affirming what's good, what's wholesome challenging what's destructive and undermining of the fullness of life Yeah, fantastic

00:58:56.520 - 00:59:01.780

Okay, thank you for that, thank you very much for your time I'm going to draw to a close now