Today I am 21,915 days old, which, I am given to understand, means that it is my 60th birthday.

James commemorated this by presenting me with a lovely poem, a greeting . . . and this card.

Novelist, critic and journalist Dr Philip Hensher FRSL argues in The Independent (26 Feb 08) that gay is no longer disapproved of, but that hiding it is. This is a challenge to the way we frame our ethics. Honesty is central.

Some years ago, after an ugly run of similar stories, several red-top newspapers let it be known that they had no further interest in "outing" well-known figures. The decision was influenced by a number of factors. In the first place, in a climate of increasing openness, they ran the risk of looking pretty stupid.

. . . There was, too, the point that readers seemed to dislike such stories a good deal. Way back in the mists of time, when a newspaper decided to out Elton John over a series of weeks, its circulation fell sharply. . . . And yet, in 2008, here we are reading what I admit to be a horridly fascinating story about Paul Burrell. (A Sunday tabloid has produced evidence that Mr Paul Burrell, the former butler to the Princess of Wales, lives a strenuously gay and somewhat promiscuous private life.) Surely, nobody cares much if someone is gay or not any more. What, if anything, has changed since the dark ages?

The moral argument has shifted its ground, clearly. In the past, being gay appeared to be grounds for disapproval on its own. These days, the grounds for moral disapproval are not being gay on its own, but the dishonesty of concealing it, and living a life of clear hypocrisy. If you said in print that a public figure was gay, incorrectly, I doubt that claim on its own would be enough to sustain a legal claim for defamation. It would only be like saying that someone was Jewish when they were not.

What would be defamatory would be the suggestion that they were living a life of deceit. The libel lawyer's definition of something disapproved of "by all right-thinking people" has shifted from the nature to the behaviour. No-one would care about [Burrell's] story, if there were not a wife and children involved.

We've seen a number of these stories recently. Simon Hughes effectively disqualified himself from leading the Liberal Democrats, not because he was gay, but because he had not had the courage to be honest about it, even when asked directly.

Thus, for instance, in vetting someone for a security clearance, Australia's authorities will not care that one is gay. But they will get nervous if one is secretive about it--for that speaks of dishonesty and is an opportunity for blackmail. Would that the churches had a similar attitude!

Dr Hensher's column follows another (24 Jul 07) in which he asked why "gay" is still used as an insult. Ask Guy Sebastian, for instance, how tediously often this happens to him (though he is not gay).

The legal steps of the past 40 years, towards equality for gay people in the UK, which Hensher describes, he says were "were only really taking cognisance of a major shift in social attitudes and a visibility which encouraged both tolerance through familiarity, and a violent rejection by a tiny mad minority."

It used to be common to read newspaper articles extolling the virtues of the gay best friend for the girl about town who wants to choose some new cushions. Now that it has dawned on even the most slow-witted of lady columnists how very offensive that is, it's been replaced by articles asking what there is for gay people to complain about now that they've got everything they ever asked for.

Of course, tolerance is now widespread and framed in law. . . . Nevertheless, "gay" and particularly "lesbian", are still widespread insults. . . .Those are direct statements of hatred, deriving from the same feelings that inspire the National Front and the religious nutters to turn out at Gay Pride with their rubbish placards, that led David Copeland to place a bomb in the Admiral Duncan, inspired the murderers of David Morley or Jodi Dobrowski to act. If paranoia is, as Adam Phillips says, the psyche's attempt to maintain the sense of its own significance, then all these attacks--the lady columnists telling us all that nobody wants to hear from us any more, the attempt to reclaim "gay" as an insult and require us not to complain about the insult--are witness to our growing significance in British society.

Perhaps only now are we coming to the point where homosexuals and lesbians, unless they are American actors or footballers, don't conceal their nature automatically, and where we regard ourselves as part of society, rather than something outside it.

The great scandalous admission for Hensher, however, is not his sexuality, but that he loves Retsina!

It was a special experience to see and hear, live, the New York Philharmonic's concert in Pyongyang, last night. The program was carefully chosen . . . the two national anthems, the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's "Lohengrin,", Dvorak's "New World" Symphony, Gershwin's "An American in Paris." Bernstein's "Candide" overture, and "Arirang". As the New York Times (27 Feb 08) describes:

As the New York Philharmonic played the opening notes of "Arirang," a beloved Korean folk song, a murmur rippled through the audience. Many of the staid spectators at this historic concert on Tuesday night perched forward in their seats. The piccolo sang a long, plaintive melody, cymbals crashed, harp runs flew up, the violins soared. And tears formed in the eyes of the sober audience, row upon row of men in dark suits and women in colorful traditional dresses, all of them wearing pins of Kim Il-sung, the nation's founding leader. And there, the Philharmonic had them. The stirring performance of a piece of music deeply resonant for both North and South Koreans ended the concert in triumph.

"This is difficult to describe," said one journalist's government-assigned minder, who was sitting in the audience. "My heart is booming. It's too exciting." The audience applauded for more than five minutes, and orchestra members, some of them crying, waved. People in the seats cheered and waved back, reluctant to let the visiting Americans leave.

"Was that an emotional experience!" said Jon Deak, a bass player, moments after the concert ended. "It's an incredible joy and sadness and connection like I've never seen. They really opened their hearts to us." The "Arirang" rendition also proved moving for the orchestra's eight members of Korean origin. "It brought tears to my eyes," said Michelle Kim, a violinist whose parents moved from North Korea to Seoul during the Korean War and who later moved to the United States.

. . . The concert brought a "whole new dimension from what we expected," Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic's music director, told reporters afterward. "We just went out and did our thing, and we began to feel this warmth coming back."

North Korea, with its highly centralized system and tight controls on the daily lives of its people, remains firmly in the grip of its leader, Kim Jong-il. He and his father, Kim Il-sung, are the subjects of a personality cult that requires portraits in every home and their images on lapel pins on the jackets of officials. Huge statues of the older Kim dominate cities. The state operates what human rights experts say is a vast gulag of labor camps, many filled with the ideologically suspect and their families. Only a trickle of foreigners come regularly to North Korea, and even fewer journalists. The influx with the Philharmonic is serving as something of a shock. A resident Western diplomat reported the words of one foreign ministry official: "Yes, this is something big."

I've just finished Ian Rankin's latest and last Rebus novel, Exit music (2007). A great read and a fine story.

J.B. Priestly has the right idea about reading crime thrillers, in his Delight. (London, 1951, pp.11-13.)

Reading detective stories in bed. I find this delightful at home, and even more delightful when I am away from home, a lost man. The fuss of the day is done with; you are snugly installed in bed, in a little lighted place of your own; and now to make the mind as cosy as the body I But why detective stories? Why not some good literature? Because, with a few happy exceptions and there are far too few of them good literature, which challenges and excites the mind, will not do. In my view, it should be read away from the bedroom. But why not some dull solemn stuff, portentous memoirs, faded works of travel, soporifics bound in calf? Here I can speak only for myself. But if my bed book is too dull then I begin to think about my own work and then sleep is banished for hours. No, the detective story is the thing, and its own peculiar virtues have not been sufficiently appreciated. The worst attempt I ever heard the Brains Trust. make was at a question concerning the popularity of detective stories. The wise men woffled on about violence and crime, missing the point by miles. (But then a man who enjoyed his detective stories at night would not bother being on the Brains Trust.) We enthusiasts are not fascinated by violence or the crime element in these narratives. Often, like myself, we deplore the blood and bones atmosphere and wish the detective novelist were not so conventional about offering us murder all the time. (A superb detective story could be written and I have half a mind to write it about people who were not involved in any form of crime. About disappearance or a double life, for example.) Please remember that most serious fiction now has ceased to appeal to our taste for narrative. The novelist may be a social critic, a philosopher, a poet, or a madman, but he is no longer primarily a story teller. And there are times when we do not want anybody's social criticism or deep psychological insight or prose poetry or vision of the world: we want a narrative, an artfully contrived tale. But not any kind of tale, no fragrant romances and the like. What we want or at least what I want, late at night; you can please yourself is a tale that is in its own way a picture of life but yet has an entertaining puzzle element in it. And this the detective story offers me. It is of course highly conventional and stylised think of all those final meetings in the library, or those little dinners in Soho (with about six pounds worth of wine) paid for out of a Scotland Yard salary but its limitations are part of its charm. It opposes to the vast mournful muddle of the real world its own tidy problem and neat solution. As thoughtful citizens we are hemmed in now by gigantic problems that appear as insoluble as they are menacing, so how pleasant it is to take an hour or two off to consider only the problem of the body that locked itself in its study and then used the telephone. (We know now that Sir Rufus must have died not later than ten o'clock, and yet we know too that he apparently telephoned to Lady Bridget at ten forty five, eh Travers?) This is easy and sensible compared with the problem of remaining a sane citizen in the middle of the twentieth century. After the newspaper headlines, it is refreshing to enter this well ordered microcosm, like finding one's way into a garden after wandering for days in a jungle. I like to approach sleep by way of these neat simplifications, most of them as soundly ethical as Socrates himself. It is true that I may burn my bedlight too long, just because I must know how the dead Sir Rufus managed to telephone; yet, one problem having been settled for me, I feel I sleep all the sounder for this hour or two's indulgence. And what a delight it is to switch off the day's long chaos, stretch legs that have begun to ache a little, turn on the right side, and then once more find the eccentric private detective moodily playing his violin or tending his orchids, or discover again the grumpy inspector doodling in his office, and know that a still more astonishing puzzle is on its way to him and to me!

Greens Senator Bob Brown and Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby joined Tony Jones on the ABC's Lateline on 20 Feb 08 to debate so-called 'gay marriage'. This is some of what the Greens' leader had to say

OB BROWN: This is a civilising move towards equality . . . It's a fundamentally reasonable and simple thing to do. . . . [I]t's time the Rudd Government took a stand on this. Thank goodness the ACT Government is pursuing the legislation it had which was overridden by the Howard Government and which now should be brought into law.
[. . .]
TONY JONES: Bob Brown, do you think the Government really has no choice if Jon Stanhope brings down this legislation once again, other than to do pretty much what John Howard did and that is to veto it because that's what's in their party platform? That's what they promised?
BOB BROWN: This is a test for Labor . . . the Stanhope Government is making a stand on behalf of its electorate. The people of the ACT voted for the Stanhope Government knowing this was on their policy platform and we had the Howard Government overriding the democratic wishes of the people of the people of the ACT. Let's hope the Rudd Government doesn't do that and go with this vociferous and outdated minority view point that there should be discrimination under the law against people simply on the basis of sexuality.
TONY JONES: What if the Rudd Government, Bob Brown, simply passed the 58 separate pieces of legislation which will end discrimination for same sex couples?
BOB BROWN: We would have moved in the right direction but they need to remove the discrimination. If you're going to do that why not go the 59th step and remove discrimination altogether and we will have a much fairer, more loving, caring and stable society as a result of that.

Corpus Christi is a passion play by Terrence McNally dramatizing the story of Jesus and his disciples, depicting them as gay men living in modern day Texas. The play shows Jesus solemnising marriage between two ot the apostles. Judas betrays Jesus because of sexual jealousy. It has been praised by critics, yet condemned by some people as blasphemous. It was first directed in New York City by Joe Mantello, opening 13 Oct 98.

The play opened at the New Theatre in Newtown on 7 Feb 08 as part of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. New Theatre's Artistic Director Louise Fischer said that

Corpus Christi was written in a quest to find humanity in religion and to explore the universality of God's love. We are not exploiting or trivialising religion or the Christian faith but rather exploring the attitude of the church towards homosexual Christians. The decision to stage [the play] was not taken lightly and was based on . . . our commitment to producing theatre that not only entertains but has artistic merit and provokes robust debate. It is a metaphor for the power of Christ's message to show tolerance and love in the face of bigotry and hatred.

The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, questioned the integrity of Corpus Christi and expressed his outrage at the "unhistorical and untrue" depiction of the son of God and some of his disciples as homosexual. "It is deliberately, not innocently, offensive and they're obviously having a laugh about it," he said. "It's historical nonsense and I wouldn't want to go and see it. Life's too short."

Director Leigh Rowney, a Christian, defended the play, denying that it mocks Jesus.

I think it humanises Him in a way Christians might find difficult because we like to believe God and the son of God are ultimately divine and above all of us. I wanted this play in the hands of a Christian person like myself to give it dignity but still open it up to answering questions about Christianity as a faith system. . . . I'm directing the play because I wanted to explore what I believe is a problem with contemporary Christian communities where gay people feel unwelcome. I want to believe in a God of love and a God of compassion, and I don’t want to believe that by virtue of your birth and your DNA . . . you are damned for all time because you just don't fit. That is not a way I want to live and it's not a belief system I want to embrace. I believe that Christianity can embrace homosexuals and that you can be actively homosexual and have an open relationship with the Christian God. . . .If yours is a living and functional faith that’s going to contribute something to the world, which it should be, you've got to embrace the possibility of including other people.

Corpus Christi has won the Drama Desk Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. But theatre critic Ashley Walker panned it in Australian Stage (09 Feb 08).

Like Mary, this play is pregnant with satirical possibilities. We wait for a comment on how the heartland of Neo-Conservative America has used Jesus' teachings to justify their every piece of censorship or act of war. What would Jesus say to all these groups of politicians and priests? Shame then, that the play continually goes for cheap and obvious gags ("Oh Jesus Christ") and the few references to gay bashing and queer marriage are done for shock value rather than to make an interesting point. The play also suffers from numerous inconsistencies in time and geography. Are we in the present or the year of Christ's birth and can someone please tell me what Roman centurions are doing in the middle of Texas?

As you might expect, the play follows the story of Jesus (Harley Connor) from the nativity scene to the crucifixion. Curiously, the first half of the play spends a lot of time at Jesus' high school graduation where he meets Judas (Matt Rossner) and discovers gay love for the first time. This lengthy scene resembles a pedestrian high school comedy. The play picks up marginally in the second half when Jesus gathers together his devoted twelve and his blazing trail of sermons and miracles gets under way. The most poignant moment in the play comes when the priests question the teaching of Jesus himself.

Corpus Christi is kept from bombing completely by its large cast (you can probably guess how many). The performance is energetic and physical. There is action all over the stage. As Jesus and Judas have an intimate conversation at the high school dance, others simulate fornication behind curtains. There is a fine moment when they all take that trade mark pose, during the last supper. The crucifixion scene is one of the few dramatic movements in the play. Jesus' fear of taking the path God has laid out for him becomes real and palpable. Christ on the cross makes an imposing figure, centre and back of the stage.

With Mardi Gras approaching, this play is likely to have an audience, but such a jumbled script is unlikely to speak to the broader community.

Well, I shall get a copy (Terrence McNally. Corpus Christi Grove, 1999. 0802136354) read it and see what I think. I appreciate the serious and laudable intentions of the play and it's presenters, but the idea of Jesus and many of his disciples being gay strikes me not so much as blasphemous as simply silly capable of being quite orthodox. (I have revised my opinion, especially after reading the McNally's Preface to the play.)

Picture: Matt Rosner, front, as Judas and Harley Connor as Jesus.

Eamon Sullivan has shown genuine courage to recover from repeated injury and may be poised to break one of swimming's most imposing world records, the 100-metre freestyle mark of 47.84. He has seen his Olympic Games chances firm in the 50 and 100 freestyle after the NSW titles where he broke the seven year old 50m freestyle world record of 21.64, with a 21.56. He then backed up to eclipse Michael Klim's Australian 100m record of 48.18, a world record when Klim achieved it in 2000, with a time of 48.11. Sullivan's career:

• World record holder 50m freestyle (21.56 seconds set in Sydney on February 17, 2008).
• Commonwealth record holder 100m freestyle (48.11 seconds set in Sydney on February 17, 2008)
• Competitor in 2007 world championships, Melbourne: 50m freestyle; 100m freestyle (bronze); 4x100m medley (gold); 2006 Commonwealth Games, Melbourne: 100m freestyle; 4x100m medley (gold); 4x100m (silver); 2004 Athens Olympics 4x100m.

Despite the horrors of Florida's 'hanging chads', our American cousins are still to learn how to run an election, its seems. This in the New York Post of 15 Feb 08

Barack Obama's primary-night results were strikingly underrecorded in several districts around the city - in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said yesterday.

Unofficial primary results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Harlem's 94th and other historically black areas--but many of those initial tallies proved to be wildly off the mark, the board said. In some districts getting a recount, the senator from Illinois is even closer to defeating Hillary Clinton. Initial results in the 94th, for example, showed a 141-0 sweep for Hillary Clinton, but the recount changed the tally to 261-136.

As yet, none of the results have been certified, but a ballot-by-ballot canvassing of all voting machines has begun, a board spokesperson said. Many of the mistakes were chalked up to human error -- and some Clinton tallies were wrong as well. In several congressional districts she was shown as having received zero votes when in fact she got hundreds, Boe said.

Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron called the understated figures "outrageous." "I think this is an all-out effort to stop a campaign that is about to make history and render America's first black president. We need some kind of independent or federal agency to investigate this."

Mrs Clinton may not even come out the winner--Obama currently has 116 delegate votes to her 118.

The Big Combo is an Allied Artists 1955 American film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis and finely photographed by cinematographer John Alton, with music by David Raksin. It was played on ABC2 recently and I found it interesting entertainment. This violent dark story tells of tormented police Lieutenant Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) who is on a personal crusade to bring down sadistic gangster Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). He's also dangerously obsessed with Brown's girlfriend (Jean Wallace). When Brown finds out that Diamond is on the case, he taunts Diamond who becomes yet more obsessed. The film ends dramatically in a classic foggy airplane hangar shootout. Apparently its regarded as a classic, stylistically at least, with Alton’s cinematography particularly notable. The plot is bit thin, but the direction, music and photography are very fine, and the acting credible in the genre. Of course these days at the cinema, a 'big combo' is more likely to be a giant serve of popcorn and a large Coke.

In a recent article (14 Feb 08) Mark Vernon notes the contrast between James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool and Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester. Bishop Jones, an otherwise conservative evangelical, "came as near you can, without actually saying it, to suggesting that the Bible sanctions committed gay love". Bishop Scott-Joynt argues against the "public advocating and vaunting of behaviour contrary to the teaching of the Church of England", referring, in particular, to gay clergy who have spoken publicly about the blessing of being in a same-sex relationship.

I agree with Vernon who says the interesting thing in this contrast is that "Jones seems to have recognised that gay people love each other and Scott-Joynt refuses to do so." Vernon continues:

It seems to me that this is the crux of where the gay debate has got to today, as much as it characterises the difference between the two bishops. For when love is recognised, it can only be a matter of time before the preacher of the gospel of love comes round.

. . . And there is another twist to add to this tale of love. The philosopher Michel Foucault pointed out that it is because homosexuality is really about love, and not just say rules of sexual conduct, that it becomes so contentious. If men and women just 'did it' together, Foucault argued, no-one would really mind. Moral authorities could publicly assert the prohibition and keep themselves pure. Individuals caught in the act could repent. This is precisely how those ecclesiastics who are anti-gay have, and want to keep, playing it.

But gay men and women love each other. That is what it means to be homosexual. And when people love, the 'act' cannot be isolated--which is why the distinction between orientation and practice is so ridiculous. Their whole lives, body and soul, act in accordance with their love. That is the joy and transformation for those who are free to love. That is the source of anger and disturbance for those who would deny it.

I am glad that Mr Michael Danby, Member for Melbourne Ports, spoke up Australia's Parliament this week on North Korea.

Perhaps it is because of my family background that I often speak in this House on matters of egregious abuses of human rights. I do not think there is anywhere else in the world where there is a greater abuse of human rights--and I include the terrible situations in Darfur, in Burma and in Zimbabwe--than in the hellish state of North Korea. We often make jokes about the dear leader Kim Jong-Il and the laughable Stalinoid military parades of the North Korean regime. Surprisingly--or not surprisingly, perhaps--it may be because of the lack of success of the attempted illegal heroin trade via a port in Victoria that the North Korean embassy has closed here. Apparently they all operate on the basis of having to fund themselves--most of them, as we know, by illegal activities.

In North Korea, two million people died recently during the famine. The state of human rights in that country is one of the most desperate in the world. Because I take these things seriously, I went to London to attend the 8th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees, which was held at Chatham House, with the earlier donors' conference held in the Attlee Room in an extension of the House of Commons. We heard from some of the extraordinary people who are bringing the situation of North Korea to the attention of the international community. The conference was organised jointly by the Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, Korea University's Graduate School of International Studies, Chatham House and the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights in Norway. It was sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Norwegian foreign ministry and the Chosun Ilbo, the South Korean donor. We had very passionate addresses from Kjell Magne Bondevik, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, and Lord David Alton, chairman of the UK's North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group. Perhaps this House should examine the idea of looking at the human rights situations in countries we do not have diplomatic representation with at the moment, with the North Koreans leaving.

I want to focus on the North Koreans whom I met there. I have met one of them before. One of the documents-- if that is what we can call it--that I got there was an incredible picture that you can get from Google Earth of the Korean peninsula at night. Of course, South Korea is all lit up, but there is not a single point of light in the whole of North Korea. The desperate lives that people must live in that benighted country are evidenced by this document, which I will seek to table in a minute. But the North Koreans impressed me so much. There was a former North Korean Air Force captain, Park Myeong-ho, and other people who spoke about engagement with North Korea. North Korea seems to be being affected by the opening up of the world, particularly South Korea, towards it. There are satellite phones that border guards now use to contact North Korean dissident groups and radio stations in South Korea. The regime seems to be crumbling, and I think it is incumbent on the world community to see that this does not happen in a way that is unmanaged, with hundreds of thousands of refugees and desperate people coming out.

I want to focus on two people in particular. One is a great Australian scholar, Andrei Loukov, formerly of the ANU, who has the idea of engagement with North Korea with a view to improving human rights in that country and changing the regime. The second is the pianist Kim Cheol Woong, who shows the human potential of the North Korean people. He was here earlier in Australia to open the Melbourne Jazz Festival, and the crime that he was jailed for originally in North Korea was that he played jazz at a Korean concert. That shows the kind of state North Korea is, when it can jail a person like him. To see a person like him here in Australia entertaining Australian people and to see him there at the conference in London is an example of the potential of human rights in North Korea and why that regime needs to be changed. I am very proud to report they are bringing the ninth conference to Australia in Melbourne next year.

These are the words of the apology to the stolen generations that the Prime Minister will propose to the new Parliament as its first order of business this morning. They are good words.

That:
Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations--this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great county, Australia.

The ludicrous overreaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent lecture Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective shows how difficult it is to present even a simple idea when there is a possibility that the press may latch on to a buzz word like 'Sharia'. If Dr Williams had not used that word, the lecture might have evoked little more than a yawn. He called for some measure of accommodation by secular societies with other faiths, taking Islam as his example. It was not satisfactory, he argued, to abide by a 'uniform law of a sovereign state' to the exclusion of other forms of religious and communal behaviour. The lecture was written as an opening contribution to a series on Islam and English Law mounted by the Temple Church and London University.

William's has a go at explaining in subsequent presidential address to the General Synod of the Church of England. Dr Williams received a strong show of support from from senior members of the Church of England gathered at the Synod, where he received a standing ovation after delivering a speech that was a carefully worded restatement of his argument for a legal accommodation with elements of the Shariah system, especially on family matters. He also acknowledged that he might have expressed his ideas on the subject last week "clumsily" and with a "misleading choice of words."

As always, Eureka Street offers a sane comment, this time by Binoy Kampmark (12 Feb 08).

The innocuous lecture, strewn with paginated references, should be read in its entirety. In a climate where the word Sharia evokes beheadings, impenetrable veils and dogmas, a full reading was too much to expect. People in non-Muslim societies see Islamic fundamentalism creeping up on them. The word Sharia tends to be a red rag to a bull.

. . . The Archbishop was simply stating an operative principle: that foreign laws and moral codes have a place in a secular setting. To put it another way, he is against 'an unqualified secular legal monopoly’' To say that Sharia law has a place in the English system -- that Muslims may see the protocols of Sharia to be determinative -- is stating an already evolving, and to a large extent, benign practice.

The issue of, as Williams terms it, 'constructive accommodation' between secular authorities and religious codes is already taking place in Western countries. Some might even argue that it has already been achieved. Since the growth of Muslim communities in some Western countries, a growing number of lawyers have become experts in Islamic dispute resolution. More sober commentators have pointed out the practice of the Beth Din Rabbinical Court among Jews. Britain's legal system, and others within the common law world, often accommodate foreign precedents, some religious. Williams might have pressed home this point, but didn’t.

Sometimes, courts will resort to private international law to resolve disputes. This is what lawyers term 'conflict of laws'. Religious matters are not ignored, primarily because religious authorities across cultures have proven instrumental in the realm of property and marriage. Would a marriage sanctified by a Rabbi be recognised before a secular authority in Britain, or Australia? Certainly, as long as the civil requirements are completed. If the practices of a rival code collide with the liberties of the secular state, the religious precedent will be ignored. This much, Williams admits.

. . . [Williams' point] is simply a reiteration of the obvious: that legal systems and obligations often have mutually sustaining and re-enforcing values.

Why then all the silly fuss?

Perhaps Theo Hobson has the answer in The Tablet (16 Feb 08). Most of the nation, he says,

are sympathetic to Christianity but sceptical of religious institutions. They want a liberal form of Christianity to lurk in the background of national identity--in order to bless liberalism rather than contest it. It is rash to dismiss this desire as muddled or hypocritical, for it is rooted in British history: our liberalism and our version of Protestantism developed side by side. Liberal Protestantism is basic to our national identity, although people don't tend to think of it as "liberal Protestantism" but as "our Christian heritage" and "our liberal tradition".

This is what Williams seems not to grasp, or chooses not to. It sets him apart from the figures I likened him to earlier, Temple, Ramsey and Runcie. For these Anglo-Catholics had an instinctive understanding that the British people will only tolerate an established Church that is sympathetic to liberalism; they saw the necessity of working with this national religious instinct, rather than seeking to antagonise and deconstruct it.

The anger that Williams has unleashed is not just down to Islamophobia. It is also a lament for the liberal Anglican culture that has been slowly collapsing for a decade or two, and has all but been lost. Such is my regard for Williams' intellect that I suspect that he knew that he was drawing attention to this, initiating a new debate about whether a liberal established Church is still meaningful. He is saying, in his deep, gentle voice: "Perhaps it's time to consider whether the old religious set-up is still what most of us really want."

Australian swimming seems to have an ability to bring forward young people of determination and wisdom beyond their years. Ian Thorpe has been an example, and there were some before him. Perhaps it's something to do with the endless laps of training and the early mornings, requiring determination and a healthy outlook.

This is 13 year old Sydney schoolboy Te Haumi Maxwell (nicknamed 'Tsunami') who is being compared to the young Ian Thorpe as he breaks a succession of age-group records, including some set by Thorpe. He has qualified to compete in March for a place on the Australian Olympic team for Beijing.



At 181cm tall and with size 10 feet, Te Haumi says it's nice to be compared to Thorpe, but he he most wants to swim like US superstar Michael Phelps, as he was an all-round talent. "I want to win gold for Australia and it's nice that people notice I'm doing well in my swimming. But everybody has their different skills. Thorpie had his 400m freestyle, but I guess I can only be me in the end."

At the recent NSW State titles Te Haumi Maxwell (13) broke a national age record in winning the 50m Freestyle in 24.67. Te Haumi also won another 4 titles (100m Free, 100m Butterfly, 100m Back, 200m Back) adding a bronze in the 200m freestyle. Te Haumi swam personal best times in every race including the heats and finals.

Suay Toprak (13) is another young swimmer who has done outstandingly. She has won 5 titles (200m Butterfly, 200m & 800m Freestyle, 400m Individual Medley, 200m Individual Medley), as well as 2nd 5km Open Water, 2nd 400m Freestyle, 5th 100m Breaststroke & 50m Freestyle, 2nd 100m Butterfly, 3rd 100m Freestyle, 4th 200m Backstroke. She earned a place on the Swimming NSW Team to compete in New Zealand in March.

New Zealand-born Maxwell became an Australian citizen recently and has been in Australia with his parents for 10 years. He went to his first swimming carnival aged nine. "I could hardly swim and barely made it through the race, but for some unknown reason my teacher thought I might have some talent!" Approach: When asked how many state age medals he had won, Maxwell said: "I don't know, lots I guess, all my races, but I have a long way to go."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland says that clauses in the ACT's civil partnerships bill that would allow gay couples to hold a public ceremony marking their union are unacceptable. "We think a civil unions register along the lines of Tasmania is appropriate," Mr McClelland told The Australian.

ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell said this week the territory would not back down from its plans to allow gay couples some form of ceremony.

The Rudd Government has previously opposed gay civil unions and prefers a system of state-based relationship registers. Mr McClelland declined to say whether the Government was prepared to override territory legislation if the ACT defied the commonwealth and passed the bill. A relationship register differs from a civil union in that it encompasses a broader range of relationships, including non-intimate ones, such as carer relationships.

Mr McClelland is effectively saying that while loving, committed same-sex partners can have legal entitlements, they're not worthy of the official, public recognition available to heterosexual couples. The Tasmanian registry model preferred by Mr McClelland may work well in Tasmania, and consistency between the states is a fine ideal, but consistency doesn't have to mean conformity. The people of the ACT should be free to enact their own laws, as the people of Tasmania were when their registry was created.

A group of Australian Christian leaders has apologised to the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities for excluding them from church activities. The '100 Revs' will march in next month's Mardi Gras in Sydney to help celebrate the parade's 30th anniversary.

Spokesman for 100 Revs is Baptist Pastor Mike Hercock, from inner Sydney. He says over the past two years, he and several colleagues have heard a succession of stories of people being excluded or isolated from their church because of their sexual orientation. "We really recognise that the church has been completely silent on the issue of embracing a homosexual community and if anything actually, has been quite hostile. I supposed we wanted to make an effort and acknowledge the difficulty and sometimes the distress caused by the church."

The group decided the best way was to apologise to the gay and lesbian community. As word of their plan spread, their numbers grew. The group's members are now drawn from several denominations including the Church of Christ; and the Baptist; Pentecostal; and Anglican churches. Pastor Hercock says its time for action.

We know that depression rates within the homosexual community are four to six times higher than the rest of the community. I have no doubt that our lack of love and compassion may have caused some significant kind of mental health type issues for some people.

The reality is we side with the Jesus of the New Testament who took on a great deal of conflict because of the people he associated and built relationships with. We genuinely think we need to have an attitude change, an attitude shift towards how we actually build relationship with the gay community. To open the dialogue.

Rodney Croome, spokesperson for the Australian Coalition for Equality, a network of gay and lesbian advocates, and he says he is happy to accept the group's apology.

Sometime in the future it would be wonderful to see Australia's official churches issuing a similar kind of apology, but in the meantime I think this really leads the way. It is important because it shows that there are Christians who are not necessarily opposed to fairness, respect and equity for gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender people.

The 100 Revs have issued this statement:

As ministers of various churches and denominations we recognise that the churches we belong to, and the church in general, have not been places of welcome for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. Indeed the church has often been profoundly unloving toward the GLBT community. For these things we apologise, whatever the distinctive of our Christian position on human sexuality--to which we remain committed. We are deeply sorry and ask for the forgiveness of the GLBT community. We long that the church would be a place of welcome for all people and commit ourselves to pursuing this goal.

We ARE a group of Christian ministers who voluntarily and individually bring this apology.

We ARE NOT official representatives of our churches or denominations.

We ARE recognising the lack of hospitality, care and welcome that the churches have offered the gay and lesbian community.

We ARE NOT making a statement on the biblical position on gay and lesbian relationships.

To fellow Christians concerned at the (im)morality displayed in the Mardi Gas parade, Mr Hercock responds:

A couple of people have raised their concern that involvement in the Mardi Gras may be seen (by church members and perhaps by the Mardi Gras organisers) as an affirmation of the promiscuity and lewdness that are part of the parade.

This is certainly not our intention. The Mardi Gras remains the iconic Gay and Lesbian event and as such is the best way of communicating with the GLBT community as a whole.

So while there is much of the Mardi Gras which disturbs us, it is the best place to communicate with those who we are trying to reach--a strategy that was familiar to Jesus (Matt 11:19; Luke 5:27; John 8:3-11).

The irony is, of course, that many cannot join this group because their sexuality makes it impossible for them to be recognised ministers. Wouldn't it be better to have such a group for all Christians?

The Guardian (5 Feb 08) reports that the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd James Jones, has apologised for his objection some time ago to the proposed appointment as a bishop of Dr Jeffery John, a celibate gay man. Bishop Jones does this in a contribution to a book, A fallible church: Lambeth essays, edited by Kenneth Stevenson (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008). The bishop also apologises for his conduct and its effect on Dr John, who eventually withdrew his acceptance of the post.

Bishop Jones says, "I deeply regret this episode in our common life. I still believe it was unwise to try to take us to a place that evidently did not command the broad support of the Church of England but I am sorry for the way I opposed it and I am sorry too for adding to the pain and distress of Dr John and his partner." He calls for Anglicans to "acknowledge the authoritative biblical examples of love between two people of the same gender .... . Bishop Jones does not directly sanction same-sex relationships. But in his essay, he nevertheless points out that it is possible on the basis of the Bible to recognise that people of the same gender can have deeply involved emotional and physical friendships.

This apology is remarkable and should be welcomed with gratitude and humility. Perhaps, after all, the divisions in the Anglican church concerning homosexuality are not utterly intractable.

In Eureka Street (1 Feb 08) there is a review by Terry Monagle of new book, Seduced by Grace: Contemporary spirituality, Gay experience and Christian faith, by Michael Bernard Kelly. (Melbourne: Clouds of Magellan Publishing, 2007) 978-0-9802983-2-1, $AU24.95. There is foreword by another remarkable Australian, Justice the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG.

Michael Kelly is a freelance writer, activist, counsellor and educator, known for his ministry in spirituality, sexuality and human integration, particularly through the Rainbow Sash movement. Reviews and comments on the book have been remarkable. I must get a copy. In his review, Monagle says

The essays assembled in this book are passionate and prophetic. Kelly must be a man of courage. He undergoes the personal struggle to reconcile his own deep faith with being proudly gay; he then commits to the struggle of achieving a right to an accepted presence for gay people in the church.

. . . These essays are both strongly personal narratives, and the proclamation of a manifesto.

In some sense he is not alone. 'Liberal' Catholics have an habitual deep frustration with the managers of the church tradition to which they have a powerful sense of belonging. Women, in particular, have felt marginalised and patronised by the clericalised Church. Kelly experiences this, but not only does he find incomprehension for his point of origin inside the church, he also finds incomprehension from many outside the church in the mainstream gay movement. 'Why would you bother?' is their challenge to him.

This is a point of view I encounter myself, even in the more liberal Anglican church. Some of Kelly's perspectives and struggle seem uniquely Roman Catholic and Australian, but I would say the wider church would benefit by hearing him. Yes, I will get a copy.

This guy is not going to win, you think. You wouldn't volunteer for this role, this multi-focal isolation, unless you were both sincere, generous and prepared for loss. It makes you think of prophets like Jeremiah who knew they were on a hiding to nothing, and begged God for leave to resign from the cause to which God had conscripted them.

Kelly says, 'There are few precedents in Church history for what we are trying to do. This is a radical experiment. It is not surprising that the Churches are unnerved by it -- we are as well.'

. . . Kelly has placed first in the book those essays which are more directly spiritual. If we are going to be persuaded by the more declamatory pieces, and those which focus on the minutiae of male to male sexuality, we will need to be convinced by his spirituality.

He describes a strong call to a contemplative spirituality, in a chapter entitled 'On the Peninsula, alone with God'. 'In 1988, exhausted after years of teaching and ministry, I moved down here to rest and live alone for a year. I walked the beaches and sat by the fire, and slowly I fell in love with a contemplative way of being.

'Contemplatives, they say, are not people who have solved the mystery of God. They are those who can no longer keep the mystery at bay.' It is from this silence, he says, that the contemplative speaks when he is called into action, even as a trouble maker.

This urge toward the contemplative is something I am increasingly aware of in myself.

The insistence of Kelly and other gay people in the church, that they are entitled to a public presence, that their orientation is compatible with a full and rich faith, is a challenge not just to the authorities but to most of us who sit in the pews and who would rather duck the harder questions. Like climate change, this one won't go away.

Quite.