LGBT Archives - Page 12 of 14

How hard is it to come out as a gay sportsman / sportswomen / person?

28/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

With a small amount of research I have discovered that since 1900, one hundred and fourteen years in total, there have only been 24 (twenty-four) sports people in the British Isles who have been our or come out as gay.
Document: Sports people who have come out in the British Isles
So why don’t sportsmen and sportswomen ‘come out’ if they are gay? Of course there is no reason why someone has to announce they are gay, there is no law, no contract (indeed there may even be contracts preventing it); but, with so few sportsmen and sportswomen visible who are gay, then those growing up don’t have positive role models to aspire to. It also enables the continuing stigmatisation of the LGBT community.
John Amaechi, the British basketballer said ‘…people have a misconception that time will automatically bring progress and that homophobia is in the decline … if you’re associated with a word that has so many pejorative connotations – ‘gay’ regularly used to mean bad, weak, wrong, sinful – it’s going to affect you’
History has shown that gay women in sports are more routinely accepted than men; but even they have been the target of bullying on and off the field, in society and in the media.
Gay men in sports are stigmatised more because being a sportsman means you are rough, tough and a ladiesman. If you are gay you can’t be a great sportsman.
Secondly, all spo0rtsmen and sportswomen depend on sponsorship, and the sponsors have not necessarily bee supportive of equality and freedom for LGBT athletes.

As I referred to at the start of this article, there are 24 noted sportsmen and sportswomen:

4 in the 1990s
5 in the 2000s

And

6 so far in the 2010s

Hopefully the tide is turning and society is more accepting, also the establishment which controls the laws and the purse strings of so much sponsorship.
What will be even more interesting is to watch and review the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia during and after the event in relationship to both the athletes who are LGBT and who go there and perform, and also for the local LGBT groups and individuals who are suffering persecution through the new laws and trumped charges and arrests.
Premier Putin’s homophobia has been shown up repeatedly, and the Mayor of Sochi (Anatoly Pakhomov) would seem to be equally homophobic ( or is he just securing his political position?) – his latest speech stating that there are no gays living in Sochi only further highlight’s Russia’s perilous states for LGBT people.

THE NUMBERS GAME

24/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Edited out-take
Gay Star
Issue No. 16
Summer 1985
THE NUMBERS GAME
An article by Joseph Dalton
Since roughly the time of the Korean War (World War 21/2) in the late 1940s and early ’50s, the international Gay movement has drawn its inspiration and much of its intellectual armoury from the United States of America. This has entailed the use of a great deal of ‘scientific’ evidence to counter the old notion of homosexuality as a sinful, or ‘animal’ or diseased condition.
This was very wise on the part the movement in all of its manifestations from the courageous but inevitably ultra-closeted founding Mothers and Fathers (so to speak) of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society to the street-wise generation of Stonewall and beyond. We appeared to be the rational, logical level-headed element in disputes with our opponents. It justified the moral anger of the GLF (Gay Liberation Front).
Did we not rest our case on solid, scientific, empirical evidence? Why were we waiting … for equality in law, at work, in housing? Our arguments emboldened ourselves as individuals, and as a self-conscious factor in society, convinced or neutralised the general public, and embarrassed our opponents. They were reduced to quoting irrelevant bits of an irrelevant Book, to smear tactics – or to silence. Our arguments were based, in the main, on the Kinsey Report.
One In Twenty
This (‘Kinsey”) seemed to indicate that a very substantial proportion of the population was specifically homosexual. This proportion was One in Twenty, to quote the title of Brian Magee’s condescending little volume published in 1966. These figures have never been challenged and up until quite recently it would have been madness for Gay people to have done such questioning. We were fighting for a place in the scheme of things. We did not want to be thought mad, bad or dangerous to know. Arguing about the niceties of Kinsey’s figures would have been grotesquely inappropriate.
But now the Gay movement has succeeded; this statement will be greeted with gasps of anger and astonishment; but it is undoubtedly accurate. It may be many long years before we are fully integrated into society (and thereby change it beyond recognition) but the days of lobotomies, ice-baths and “aversion therapy”, to name some of the instruments used in “civilised” countries, are gone forever.
Classic Faults
So we can cast a cold eye on the Kinsey Report. And note that there is a lot wrong with it. It is, in many ways, a classic piece of American ‘social science’, with the classic faults. These include the fact that the investigators did not go off-Campus – to test the general public. Admittedly the general public would probably have been less forthcoming about their sexual preferences — especially if they had been out of kilter with those that were socially acceptable in the Truman (and McCarthy) years.
This means that the people surveyed by Kinsey and his assistants were, in effect, self-selected. This alone skews the resulting figures in a number of ways. Kinsey was known to be open-minded on sexual matters (this certainly was not the case with the majority of psychologists, psychiatrists or the medical profession in general). Because of Kinsey’s ‘stance’ Gay people – lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and other sexual minorities were prepared to be more up-front with him, than with other investigators. It left the investigators open to those who were not telling the truth — or were telling the investigators what they (the subjects) thought they wanted to hear.
Exaggeration
Commonsense and experience of the ‘political wing’ of the Gay movement, of the telephone helplines, the gay social groups and Centres – the ‘community’. And of the pubs, clubs, discos, saunas – the ‘scene’, including the cottages where gay men, anyway, all meet on an equal basis, impelled the ‘the agony in the crotch’ tell us that he Kinsey figures are an exaggeration.
Homosexual people do not constitute anything even remotely like five per cent of the over-all population. Half of that figure might be accurate and it is more than defensible to quote a figure of one per cent — or less. This figure covers homosex-ually-oriented people (largely men. It seems accurate to say that there are fewer specifically homosexual women, possibly because in our culture women are allowed more leeway in expressing themselves physically, thus dispersing a build up of homoerotic feeling. There has been lately the phenomenon of “political lesb-ianism”. Women’s sexuality appears to be a more elastic thing than that of men) rather than Gay people. GLF used “Gay” to mean anyone who was not 110% heterosexual.
One In One Hundred
This more reasonable figure gives a more realistic perspective on the position of Gay people in society. It gives a more reasonable perspective on homosexual people as people. If you think there are roughly three million homosexuals in the UK you must also believe that hundreds of thousands if not several million are utterly without backbone. This is self-evidently inaccurate. People have ‘come out’ with courage, fortitude and flair in the most difficult and painful circumstances.
Accepting that the true figure is something like six hundred thousand or fewer, spread over all age groups from early adolescence to extreme old age, it becomes obvious that most of these people have surfaced and are part of the Gay sub-culture. This again, ranges from a yearly phone call to the local Switchboard to being … President of NIGRA [the Northern Ireland Gay Right Association – upstart 2013]. We are, largely, aware of each other’s existence.
This assessment gives a more accurate picture of the burgeoning Gay comm-unity. “Out” Gays are not the tip of an iceberg vanguard of a huge timorous majority, the “mere” ten thousand or so that turn out for Gay Pride marches in various parts of these islands are a substantial percentage of the overall gay population.
Creative
Instead of a ragbag of committed people all apparently going in different direct-ions, we are generally-speaking a disciplined sub-culture tending in one direction – towards genuine civil liberty and equality, and at a very fast pace. Our apparent diffuseness irritates the tidy minded, nevertheless we are approaching emancipat-ion faster than the Catholics or the Jews did in the previous century, and faster than non-European immigrants at present.
The above may appear over-sanguine to the committed or the alienated. It must be emphasised that building a community while exhausting is deeply satisfying. Whether it is a few hours a week in a pub backroom that is achieved, or a full-scale Gay community centre.
The future for Gay people is bright, even if we suffer momentary setbacks. We must be realistic, our effect on society at large, is predicated on our being in a morally strong position, where the largely indifferent majority are not prepared to oppress us, or stand over the oppression of an inoffensive minority. And one were our enemies are reduced to living in a nostalgic dream world. This is how the ’67 Act was achieved from ‘within the closet’.
Nobody today could listen to a Sir Cyril Osbourne clone claiming that there were no homosexuals in the House of Commons (even if a number had not come out) with a straight face.
Self-reliance
We will achieve legal equality and a rationalised age of consent, we can also achieve job protection and legal recognition and protection of longstanding relationships. Where we may come a cropper, is demanding more out of society and / or the state than we are entitled to in terms of head count. ‘Probable’ Gays can’t be counted as the ‘real thing’ just for the sake of bamboozling the rest of society.
Gay people have played a great part in sexualising our culture, but there’s little chance of homosexualising it. Society will not even become ‘bi-sexual’ so much as omnisexual. This will be the best of all settings for homosexual people and all other sexual minorities. This will not come about by wishful thinking nor probably in a short period of time but by self-discipline and self-reliance, rising from the “bottom” to the “top”. We are, happily, in a position where traditional notions of leaders and led simply will not function.

Further reading:

About.com – The Gay Population

Picket outside church event on 'converting gays'

24/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Gay Conversion therapy doesn’t work

On Saturday 18th January 2014, the Ballynahinch Baptist Church hosted the ‘Setting Love In Order’ conference organised by the Core Issues Trust. The Trust was arguing for ‘freedom for gay people to approach psychiatrists and counsellors about their homosexuality’; this was a thinly disguised message about converting gays, or in other words ‘conversion therapy’.

One of the discussions was entitled: Don’t want to be gay any more? Sorry we’re not allowed to help you! Is that ethical?’ This is a thinly disguised approach to gay conversion therapy, which Robert Spizer in 2001 was promoting, Spitzer renounced and retracted his own study in 2012, stating “I was quite wrong in the conclusions that I made from this study. The study does not provide evidence, really, that gays can change. And that’s quite an admission on my part.”^.He also apologized to the gay community for making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy, calling it his only professional regret. Spitzer has requested that all “ex-gay” therapy organizations such as NARTH, PFOX, American College of Pediatricians, and Focus on the Family stop citing his study as evidence for conversion therapy.

Pro-gay protestors outside the church were there to give the message that therapy has been discredited, it doesn’t work. And also to give out a positive message that being LGBT is not wrong, it is not bad, and it is not broken so it doesn’t need ‘fixed’.

Further reading:

DIY Funerals – all the rage from 'Soaps' to Co. Down

16/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Reprinted from The Irish Times dated January 15, 2014

Written by: Richard O’Leary

Viewers of Coronation Street have been intrigued by Roy Cropper’s plans for a “DIY” funeral for his terminally ill wife Hayley. Roy was seen searching on the internet for “do it yourself” funerals, and Hayley suggested they wouldn’t even need an undertaker. In the fictional world of Corrie, anything is possible, but is a DIY funeral a realistic option?
Last year I had to ask myself this same question. During the summer my partner of 25 years, Mervyn Kingston, was told he was terminally ill with bone cancer and had only weeks to live. Unlike Coronation Street’s Roy, who was initially reluctant to discuss funeral planning with his wife Hayley, I was fortunate that Mervyn openly discussed the subject with me. He told me of his wish for a DIY funeral, or as we preferred to call it, a “direct-it-yourself” funeral.
We both liked the idea of a simple, “not-for-profit” funeral consistent with our non-consumerist values. We were attracted by the possibility of increasing the contribution of our close friends and family to one of life’s main events, while minimising the involvement of strangers and professional funeral service providers. Furthermore, I retained a memory of my grandmother’s funeral in Co Cork. Granny was laid out at home by a neighbour who had known her for decades. She was waked in her own home. Those who knew her well transported her to the church for a simple funeral service.
Mervyn dictated instructions to me from his bed, as I typed up a list of all the tasks we could envisage being part of the funeral. We were fortunate that Mervyn had been a Church of Ireland clergyman until his retirement in 2007, meaning that he was well aware of the tasks involved. However, even without this experience, most people would be capable of drawing up the to-do list. I then contacted likely volunteers among our close friends and family, inviting them to carry out post-death tasks – transport, pall-bearing, flowers, catering.
Registering a death

First I familiarised myself with the legal requirement to register a death. There is no cost in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland for registering a death. The only cost is for copies of death certificates (information on registration can be found atgroireland.ie or nidirect.gov.uk). Then we both prepared the draft death notice for later submission to The Irish Times. Even in the age of the internet, a newspaper death notice is an indispensable way of informing the wider community, especially older contacts, of a death.
Hayley in Coronation Street said, “I don’t want to waste good money on oak caskets and brass handles”. However, the alternative isn’t necessarily Roy’s self-assembly cardboard coffin. We sourced a sturdy and attractive wooden coffin for £420 (about €510) from a local undertaker in Co Down.
Although we had been told that some undertakers might be reluctant to sell a coffin on its own as part of an “a la carte” service without the full funeral package, that was not our experience. Our local undertaker was friendly and accommodating, advising us that this coffin from their brochure could be purchased with a simple phone call when required.
We knew we would need help when it came to preparing the body, and it appears that the days when this skill was available in the local community are gone. We made inquiries among district nurses, care workers and clergy as to who might be able to prepare the corpse. All our inquiries drew a blank. Fortunately, in advance of the death we agreed with the undertaking firm that sold us the coffin that it would prepare the corpse as well. We did not request embalming. The charge for the basic preparation was £75.
We had a preference for a church service for the funeral, so we advised in advance the relevant clergy of the expected death. I typed the service sheet in advance – including the hymns – ready to be photocopied once the date of death was inserted. We also had a preference for burial rather than cremation. We already had a family grave in a graveyard. I contacted the gravedigger.
Best-made plans

“No man knoweth the day or the hour” (Matthew 24:36). Even the best-made plans for an impending death will need to be altered. Here is how it panned out for us.
Mervyn died peacefully at home with me by his side on Friday, August 2nd, at 6.20pm. We kept his body at home that night at a cool temperature. The following morning I phoned the funeral service to complete the purchase of the coffin and requested that the funeral service collect the corpse to prepare it before it was returned to our home.
I contacted the church and the clergyman to agree the date and time of the church service. I informed the gravedigger to ensure his availability on the same day. Normally an undertaker would attend to these tasks. Once these details were confirmed, the finalised death notice was emailed to The Irish Times and I alerted my list of volunteers that they should begin their tasks – providing the vehicles, flowers, photocopying of service sheets and catering.
The day before the funeral, a volunteer collected the death certificate from the GP’s surgery and registered the death at the registrar’s office. This must be done before the funeral can take place. We waked Mervyn at home that evening. We made one room in our house available for viewing of the coffin. Fortunately we remembered to choose a room into which a 6ft coffin could easily be carried. It felt right that mourners could say goodbyes to Mervyn and offer support to me in our own home.
On the morning of the funeral, instead of a black hearse, Mervyn’s close friend Percy used his estate car to transport the coffin to the church. A beautiful spray of flowers prepared by a friend from Mervyn’s favourite garden adorned the coffin. Six pre-arranged friends acted as pall-bearers. Instead of the unfamiliarity of a chauffeur-driven black limousine, I was driven by a close friend in his saloon car. After the church service, instead of going to a hotel, home-made refreshments were prepared and served by volunteers in the adjacent church hall.

Transported by friends
A smaller group of mourners drove to the graveyard. As I sat in the saloon car following the estate car containing Mervyn’s coffin, my sister remarked to me “how comforting it is that a dear friend of Mervyn’s is bearing his body to the graveyard”. At the cemetery one of the volunteers brought straps to assist the pall-bearers to lower the coffin into the open grave. This highlights the number of small tasks and items that can easily be forgotten and need to be included on the to-do list for your DIY funeral.
DIY funerals are not for everyone. There are many tasks to be undertaken at an emotional time in a short period. An anticipated death makes it easier, and detailed planning is essential. It requires the availability of reliable volunteers. Nevertheless, as our experience shows, a DIY funeral is achievable.
It is certainly more economical – a basic cost €600 (coffin plus preparation of corpse) compared with the typical funeral service’s basic package of €2,500. This difference is mainly accounted for by the saving on administration, personnel time and transport costs, which in our case were borne by volunteers.
Typically, there are additional expenses such as costs of newspaper death notices and the grave – the latter can sometimes be considerable.
We donated our savings from our DIY funeral to our favoured charity. However, as important as the economic advantage is, the personal satisfaction of directing it yourself is immeasurable. It felt more like my granny’s traditional funeral.
The contribution of family members and close friends, instead of strangers, transformed a very sad occasion into an unexpectedly positive experience.

Further reading (Inclusion is not a recommendation of any particular organisation or company):

Northern Ireland's LGBT Community Disenfranchised Again

10/12/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

We need to see delivery from Office of First Minster and Deputy First Minister (OFMdFM) – Nesbitt
Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mike Nesbitt MLA, has called for delivery from OFMdFM on the Sexual Orientation Strategy.
Mr Nesbitt, who is also Chair of the OFMdFM Committee, said:“The Sexual Orientation Strategy is becoming one of the longest running sagas of devolution. We have been waiting seven years for a strategy to be produced, following the consultation process of 2006.
“The Assembly was given a commitment by then Junior Minister Robin Newton in 2010 that a strategy was imminent. Then last year Junior Minister Jonathan Bell said we would see the strategy by the end of 2012; again, it didn’t appear. Then in Together: Building a United Community a commitment was given to publishing a sexual orientation strategy before the end of 2013, and lo and behold it hasn’t appeared.
“So where is it? It’s a Programme for Government commitment and after seven years, it’s non-appearance is also conclusive proof of the dysfunctionality of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
“The purpose of the strategy is to address issues faced by the LGBT community in Northern Ireland, so it is a very important document. Is it now going to become a yearly event where we mark the non-publication of the Sexual Orientation Strategy? If it weren’t so serious, this debacle would be laughable.
“If OFMdFM are serious about building a shared future in Northern Ireland, publishing the sexual orientation strategy would send out a strong message. We need to see delivery on this; it cannot and should not be allowed to rumble on any longer.”
Ulster Unionist Press Office
Room 215 Parliament Buildings
Stormont
Belfast
BT4 3XX

Further reading:

OFMandDFM – Sexual Orientation
BBC News MLAs Support Sexual Orientation Motion

LGBT History Archive – Open Meeting

11/11/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Outburst is showing A CENTURY LATER: LGBT – A HIDDEN HISTORY on Sat. 16th Nov 3.30pm in the Black Box- Green Room and its FREE (Northern Visions Dur: 40 Min).
history
Immediately following the screening will be an informal round table discussion, led by the LGBT History Archive Working Group in Belfast, around building an online public archive that shares the stories, memorabilia and key events that shaped, and continue to shape, our LGBT histories in Northern Ireland.

Please come along and let us know your views, and even better get involved with the project

FOR YOUR COMMUNITY BY YOUR COMMUNITY

LGBT Remembrance at Belfast Cenotaph

07/11/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Those who gathered to remember past LGBT people persecuted for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Photo: Simon Rea.

This morning about ten to eleven, a number of members of the LGBT community from the city of Belfast gathered to stand in solidarity and remembrance for all those in Germany, and all nations who lost their lives or were imprisoned for their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The short simple act of remembrance was instituted and organised in the past by PA MagLochlainn, who died about this time a year ago. This year, Andrew Smyth from Cara-Friend organised the event and we were pleased to support it.
We heard from a number of readings including an extract from The Men with the Pink Triangle by Heinz Heger which was read by John O’Doherty of The Rainbow Project.

The prisoners’ uniforms were marked with a coloured cloth triangle to denote their offence or origin.
…
Yellow for Jews, black for anti-socials, red for politicalise, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, green for criminals, blue for emigrants, pink for homosexuals, brown for gypsies.
The pink triangle, however, was about 2 or 3 centimetres larger that the others, so that we could be clearly recognised from a distance. (from The Men with the Pink Triangle)

A wreath in the shape of a pink triangle was laid at the Cenotaph by Jeff Dudgeon and Andrew Smyth and we stood together in silence to remember those that suffered at the hands of the Nazis and all who have suffered persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

15 years after Matthew Shepard: so much achieved for gay rights, but so much more to do

06/10/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

I remember reading my copy of Gay Times about the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. At the time I ended up in tears, and this evening re-reading about the murder, looking at photographs of those responsible as well as of that infamous fence in the State of Wyoming and the well known family photo of Matthew. The Matthew Shepard Foundation posted the following status on Facebook, and I feel that we should spread it wider.

“15 years ago this evening, Matthew Shepard was driven from the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming to the outskirts of the city by two strangers who did not like that he was gay. They tied him to a fence, beat him with the butt of a gun, and left him for dead.
“The Casper Star Tribune, Matthew’s hometown newspaper, ran a beautiful story of the contradictions Wyoming still has in the acceptance and treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
“These contradictions parallel those at the national and international level as well. Just because same-sex couples can get married in 13 states and the District of Columbia doesn’t mean that these couples don’t have to think about their rights when they go on vacation. Or get transferred for work and move to one of the 29 states in which you can be fired for being gay, 33 for being transgender.
“While progress has been made over the last 15 years, we have a long way to go before we have true, meaningful equality.”

— Matthew Shepard Foundation Facebook page

So much achieved, yet so much still to do

So much has been achieved for gay rights across the world in the years since Matthew’s cruel death, but we have still so much to do. Fifteen years on, the same homophobia seen in Wyoming in 1998 is very much alive and well here in Northern Ireland.

A man had his nose broken nose during a homophobic assault on the Dublin to Belfast train between Newry and Portadown in December 2012. (Belfast Telegraph)
Henry McDonald wrote in the Guardian that the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland found in some research that 80% of homophobic attacks here in Northern Ireland are not reported.
Thug jailed for homophobic attack in Belfast gay bar reported in the Belfast Telegraph in June 2013
In September three men admitted the manslaughter of Andrew Lorimer in Lurgan in what is a suspected homophobic attack.
A drug addict took a legal high before he attacked a man and shouted homophobic abuse at him, a court heard in July 2013. (BBC News)

The cases illustrated above are those which have made it into a quick search on Google. I am sure that there have been many more homophobic incidents since this time last year. As the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said in the past,

“Hate crime is unacceptable, no one deserves to experience it and no one deserves to get away with it. To stop it, report it, do not suffer in silence.”

It is clear to me that we must continue to stand up for our rights, not just against homophobic attacks but the anti-gay policies of the DUP health minister, Edwin Poots, who seems to be leading a new crusade against our rights in his relentless appeals against decisions of the Northern Irish Courts relating to the Gay Blood Ban, and Adoption by Gay Couples.
Anyone interested in working towards full equality for all who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, please get in touch and help stand alongside our brothers and sisters in the Matthew Shepard Foundation working to ‘Erase Hate’ now.

Do LGBT people use NI Libraries? If so, what are your views?

19/09/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

NIGRA Secretary, Dave McFarlane has been corresponding with Sean Beattie from Libraries NI about the the LGBT community’s use of the Library service. Sean is keen to meet with members of Northern Ireland’s LGBT community to discuss:

How often people who identify as LGBT use the library service?
What you use the library service for?
What you would look for when using the library (internet access, LGBT section etc)?

Sean is keen to carry out a survey across the LGBT community in Northern Ireland along the same theme.
Anyone interested in meeting Sean and working to improve the LGBT provision in NI libraries, please contact Dave McFarlane directly using the form below:

Error: Contact form not found.

Charles Kenny – "Eulogy at Mervyn Kingston’s funeral"

03/09/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

“Eulogy at Mervyn Kingston’s funeral”
It is a privilege to have been asked to speak publicly as we meet here today formally to express our sorrow at the death of our brother, friend, fellow-churchman, Mervyn, to thank God for his life and work, and to show our sympathy to those nearest and dearest to him, especially to Richard his partner.
George Mervyn Kingston was born in Florida Drive, East Belfast. In those difficult post-war yrs his twin sister Jill and he attended Nettlefield School and Willowfield Parish Ch. Both of these institutions were from the beginning important to Mervyn and I think he knew they were to influence, even determine, the course of his life. The PE school prepared him for Grosvenor High School on the other side of the city; and the parish church and its parochial halls were a wonderful outlet for this young boy. He thrived in the life of this big and busy Parish Church on My Lady’s Road; for the C of I of the time, it gave unusual prominence and opportunity to lay people in worship and parochial organisations. Many good parishioners participated hands-on in the day-to-day and Sunday by Sunday running of the parish. (The General Vestries were sometimes eye-opening.) These experiences gave Mervyn a vocation to the sacred ministry. I knew Mervyn in the first decade and a half of his life, but not well; a 12 yr old boy doesn’t have much in common with a 4 yr old who isn’t his brother and I left these shores in 1962 but I remember the pleasure of my parents in a blue aerogramme to me telling me the news: did I remember young Mervyn Kingston? well, he had been accepted for ordination. He would be going down to Dublin in September. My parents and everyone else around the church were delighted. There was a detail in this development which was indicative of something that would be seen again in the future. As a child and teenager Mervyn had quite a bad stammer which he had overcome; he didn’t give up easily. Also by then he was finding fulfilment in his work in Social Services; but he felt the call to the Ministry and the Church recognised and welcomed that in 1969.
The Revd Mr Kingston was ordained for the curacy of Comber Parish to learn the trade and the practice from Hammy Leckie (this was a good choice, he reckoned at the time and subsequently), then back in E Belfast he served in St Donard’s where he appreciated Pat Synnott as mentor, followed by Down Cathedral with particular concern for Ardglass. Later in the mid 80s he crossed the river to Connor and the housing estate at the top of the Shankill Road; then down to a spur of Armagh Diocese that curiously reaches the sea near Dundalk, a care of souls which includes Carlingford and Crossmaglen.
Obviously these locations are very diverse and varied in every way but in all these milieux Mervyn was a consistent cleric and pastor. He began during the most destructive and murderous years of the Troubles and that affected his perception of what he believed God was asking of his people. Mervyn never lost the mind-set, the aspirations and the vocabulary of evangelical churchmanship. He was an evangelical true to the Gospel. In later years he often gently queried his more radical friends and colleagues who tend to dismiss the evangelical tradition as a discredited and spent force, always in hock to biblical idolatry which precludes any sort of prophetic Xnity, and which had played its part in creating debased Irish Xnity. Mervyn rejected this emphatically remembering the good people of his youth. But he knew what the epistoler James had in mind when James derides faith that is not evidenced in practice or in life. Mervyn was by nature conciliatory, seeing the best in everyone, aware of reasons, explanations of bad attitudes and deeds; he understood the power of history and environment; he tried to explain, to educate, willing people to see something differently, to read the words of Our Lord with openness and insight (as if for the first time), to try to separate the gospel imperatives from local cultural assumptions, to be sure they were questioning the latter in the light of the former, as Jesus did continually. He respected others’ opinions even when he felt in conscience that there was a better way and that it was his parsonical duty at least to present an alternative Xn position. But he always laid it on the line when he was seeking a new post. The elephant in the room was identified starkly; if you choose me you are getting an ecumenical C of I rector. “Ourselves alone” is heretical; I will want to work with those of other traditions; I will work for rapport between them and us. Furthermore I will work with and for those on the edge, those at the margins, (as the Lord did); indeed the faithfulness of our Gospel will be determined by how successful we are in these two regards. These are not negotiable, they are sine qua nons of Xnity.
About 35 yrs ago quite a few young people were frequenting St Donard’s Church and its youth club and recently Mervyn mentioned with pleasure to me that altho’ sometimes they vigorously challenged or rejected some advice of their curate, the verdict of one of them was: “You made us think!” How many of us pastors have had that accolade?
In the mid 80s Mervyn’s institution in St Andrew’s at the top of the Shankill Road was attended by one of his friends Fr Joseph Campbell in his robes, (he had also attended his ordination 10 yrs earlier). Some months later his parishioners were enchanted by a sermon from a nun in their pulpit. This was the pattern throughout his incumbencies, contact with the other, encouraging the C of I faithful to be open to others, “the other side”. Mervyn believed in that and practiced it, no more fervently than in his last incumbency at Creggan and Ballymascanlon. Here was a conspicuous opportunity of living out that old Anglican adage about rectors being there for the benefit of all of the people physically in their cure. The rector of Creggan ministered to the small protestant minority who felt under pressure and also to all who lived there; he met, liaised with, negotiated, socialised with the local people, and their political representatives. This caused surprise at first but went down well when it became apparent that things got done, attitudes mellowed, to the benefit of the whole community.
Back in 1969 it had been a revelatory experience for a young school leaver from Florida Drive to work for 4 yrs out of a Supplementary Benefits office in west Belfast. He and his office became known for his understanding, non-judgmental approach, general humanity and sympathy. This was instinctive to Mervyn as the mindset natural to any follower of Jesus. I’m told that in the office the nickname for this junior civil servant was Santa Claus.
The other elephant in the room was caused by the increasing awareness during our lifetimes that not everyone is heterosexual. For many yrs Mervyn had been drawn to quiet involvement in mixed marriages, to help with, encourage and sometimes to offer private blessings for mixed couples, or for divorced couples not welcome in their own church who still wanted a Godly benediction on their union. Mervyn is among those who came, after much thought, study, prayerful consideration, to a similar openness towards same gender couples, those whose natural and only search for love, for mutual comfort help and society that the one should have of the other that the BCP so correctly stresses as the foundation of life among almost all of us. Xns who were gay were beginning to emerge from the shadows in the 1980s and Mervyn was among them. But there was a change of gear, a new burst of energy, with the setting up of Changing Attitude Ireland in 2007. Here for the first time was concerted public involvement by church men and women, gay and straight, within the C of I, and all other Irish Churches, pointing out simply the unjust and socially damaging and downright cruel nature of conventional Xn dismissal of the unhappiness and anxiety of gay Xns. You are welcome in the church only if you pretend you are not what you are. The founders and inspiration behind CAI were Mervyn and Richard O’Leary. I dare to say that future generations of our church, if not the present one, will recognise this enterprise and thank God for it.
In 2002 the rector of Creggan and Ballymascanlon was diagnosed with prostate cancer and the following year was incapable of full-time ministry. The Diocese recognised this, made him a minor canon of Armagh Cathedral with the title of Vicar Choral. (Music, ecclesiastical and other, singing was always a joy to Mervyn.) This obtained until 2007 when he retired.
Since then, Mervyn has been increasingly looked after and sustained by Richard. The professionals from the Hospice helped, the input of two individual carers went far beyond duty. This meant Mervyn has continued faithfully to fight the good fight to the very end, to fulfil his godly calling to leave this world, this country and his beloved church in a state more pleasing to the Almighty for his having been with us. The struggle goes on: from his labours may Mervyn rest in peace.