Terry Sanderson’s new autobiography “The Reluctant Gay Activist” is now available on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reluctant-Gay-Activist-Terry-Sanderson/dp/B09BYN3DD9/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

The war that religion has declared on homosexuality is intensifying around the world. Wherever gay rights are progressing, religion is reviving itself on the back of opposition to them.

The Anglican Church is about to detonate another bombshell, the Eames Report, that will convert the Anglican Union into the Anglican Disunion overnight. If preliminary reports are correct, it will also represent the greatest betrayal of a minority (gays) by a religious body since the time Pope Pius XII decided to throw in his lot with the Nazis against the Jews.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has been a big disappointment to gay people. Despite early promise, he has now firmly sided with the evangelical bigots who are pushing to take over the Anglican Church, and who have ruthlessly used homosexuality as a means of doing it.

Indeed, the former Bishop of Newark in New Jersey, John Spong, was reported in The Sunday Telegraph to have said of Williams: “His actions have revealed a fatal character flaw. He has no courage, no backbone and no ability to lead. He is now destined to be a long-serving but ineffective and empty man who has been revealed to be incapable of carrying the responsibility placed upon him.” I think that is a fair summation of the invertebrate occupant of Lambeth Palace, who is about to sell us down the river to his hate-filled fundamentalist friends.

Over in Rome, the repulsive old geezer tottering on the Throne of St Peter is even worse. But at least he is straightforward with his detestation of homosexuals. His brutish campaign against us is open, upfront and as raw as sewage.

In Spain, however, there is a fightback against the Vatican’s political ambitions. The new socialist government there is trying hard to wrench the ‘Holy See’s’ grip from the country’s throat. The Spanish cabinet has agreed to bring forward plans for gay marriage (not the inferior civil unions that we’ve been offered, but the real thing).

This has given the Catholic Church the opportunity to vent all its seething homophobia.

The Times reported the Spanish house of bishops as saying that if the Gay Marriage Bill is passed it would be like “releasing a virus into Spanish society”.

The Guardian quoted priest, Father Antonio Seijas of Galicia, as saying “This government is disgraceful, pornographic. It is not just Catholic values that are being destroyed but human ones,” while on Ireland Online, the Vatican’s “top official for family issues”, Cardinal Alfonso Trujillo said: “They present [gay marriage] as if it were a conquest of modernity and of democracy, but really they are falling into deep dehumanisation.”

So there we have it, gay relationships are not even human.

But the government of Spain’s handsome Prime Minister Zapatero is determined. The Guardian also quoted the justice minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar as saying: “Our constitution guarantees the right to marriage… We’re going to extend that right to people who historically have been discriminated against: homosexuals.”

The Churches in Spain now have an issue around which they can unite in righteous hatred, and they have promised that they will bring the population onto the streets in protest. They may find it difficult, though, as polls show that 70% of the population support the government’s plans. That’s democracy for you. But what does democracy mean to the Pope? Answer: nothing.

The Pope was quick off the mark in New Zealand, too, when the government there announced it wanted to introduce civil unions for homosexuals and heterosexuals. The pontiff said, in The New Zealand Herald-Sun, that such arrangements “violated God’s plan”. So, now not only are we sub-human in the eyes of the Church, we are also a violation of divine will. And just to make sure New Zealand gays understand their inferior status as Christians, the Guardian reported that the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church “voted to bar from leadership posts people living together in gay or unmarried relationships.”

In Australia, Bishop Christopher Prowse was complaining about the “prevalence of gay characters on prime-time television”. He told The Sunday Herald-Sun that showing gay relationships in a positive way could “undermine society”. A Catholic colleague, Babette Francis, called on viewers to campaign to have gay characters taken off air completely.

In Canada, where “gay marriage” is legal in three provinces and one of the territories – and may soon be legalised throughout the country, the debate has caused endless religious opposition. When the new Canadian ambassador to the Vatican, Donald Smith, met the Pope for the first time, he was given a lecture about the “evils of homosexual unions”. (That’s right, add ‘evil’ to the list).

Over in the United States, the Pentecostal churches must think all their birthdays have come at once since the President made “gay marriage” a central plank of his election campaign. All over the country there are court cases raging, mostly brought by religiously-motivated politicians, trying to outlaw gay marriage or civil unions.

Then came the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who said on one of his nightly TV rants: “I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”

Despite the general senselessness of the statement, the message that Braggart wants to convey – that he hates gay people enough to kill them – came over loud and clear. The uproar was such that he was forced to apologise, but there is little doubt the apology was made through gritted teeth (and he probably had his fingers crossed behind his back in the way that superstitious people do). We shouldn’t forget that Swaggart is trying to rehabilitate himself after he was caught visiting a prostitute in 1988 and was also found to have a prostitute in his car when stopped over a traffic violation in 1991.

Meanwhile, the man at the centre of the Anglican hurricane in America is Gene Robinson, who was consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire, despite being openly gay. He has remained steadfast throughout all this, maintaining his dignity and refusing to accept that he is the sub-human the evangelicals have tried to portray him as. On the Radio 4 Sunday programme, Robinson said: “The God I worship doesn’t ask me to sacrifice justice to achieve unity and I would be highly surprised if, in my prayer life, God was asking me to do so.”

Of course, God always seems to tell Christians to do what they were going to do in the first place, so it is assured that Gene Robinson will not resign.

But he could certainly be kicked out. Now, as he waits for the slug from Canterbury to come for his head, he has received no support from the other gay priests in his diocese. The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement even went so far as to call on the episcopal closets of New Hampshire to make themselves known. “When Gene was consecrated we expected other bishops to put their heads above the parapet”, said LGCM spokesman Martin Reynolds in The Observer. “We’re dismayed that Gene has been left to stand alone.”

Perhaps this is a job for the American branch of Outrage! And maybe the British branch ought to get its “outing” boots on, too, and show the cowardly queer acolytes of the blessed Rowan just what shits they are for staying silent.

Come on boys. Time to remove the velvet gloves and show the iron fist.

Terry Sanderson’s new autobiography “The Reluctant Gay Activist” is now available on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reluctant-Gay-Activist-Terry-Sanderson/dp/B09BYN3DD9/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

It was Deborah Orr in The Independent who put it in an interesting way, when she wrote: “It is much easier to be unlucky – as far as the ill-luck of being a victim of a random hate attack is concerned – when you are gay, than when you are straight.”

She was referring to the brutal killing of David Morley by a gang of youths on the South Bank in London. David Morley – Cinders to his friends – was a gay man who had been working in the Admiral Duncan pub on that fateful day in 1999 when it was bombed by a loony fascist by the name of David Copeland. On that occasion, Cinders had escaped with cuts, bruises and post-traumatic stress. His second brush with such seething homophobia, however, proved fatal.

The murder of David Morley, and the frenzied attacks on other people in the vicinity on the same night, were just an extreme example of what is happening on a daily basis around the country. The low-level bullying, the routine beatings, the frightening intimidation, the cat-calls and insults don’t generally make it into the papers. The people on the receiving end have to put up with it as best they can.

All attempts to measure the extent of anti-gay hate crime show that it is increasing. One government report showed that 38 per cent of gay men and women had either been victim of or had witnessed crimes committed by homo-haters. A report from the Metropolitan police showed a 15% rise over a year.

Whether this is because recent police initiatives have encouraged more people to report attacks, or whether it is simply that more attacks are taking place, is yet to become clear.

Take the case of the playwright Alan Bennett, who now regards the situation as so awful that it has prompted him to finally come of out the closet. Mr Bennett revealed in The London Review of Books that he and his partner, Rupert Thomas, were set upon by two youths while on holiday in Italy in 1992. After being beaten with steel scaffolding, Bennett and Thomas sought shelter in a cafe until the ambulance came, and Mr Bennett was taken to hospital where he received 12 stitches to his head.

He was later interviewed by the caribinieri, who like the doctor and the cafe owner, immediately assumed that Mr Bennett and Mr Thomas had been soliciting. “There is no longer any doubt about this crime in either of their minds,” wrote Mr Bennett, who is 30 years older than Mr Thomas, “this oddly matched couple have been up to no good; what this sorry-looking, middle-aged Englishman is not saying is that on that seedy promenade some advance had been made, a gesture even, and the honour of the Italian male impugned. The wound I have received is virtually self-inflicted, an entirely proper response to Italian manhood.”

Alan Bennett says he has found it hard to write about the assault until now. “To be attacked, beaten up or otherwise abused, and to find the police response one of indifference, is a not infrequent experience of homosexuals, and blacks, too. But reluctant to be enrolled in the ranks of gay martyrdom, reluctant to be enrolled in any ranks whatsoever, I kept quiet about this adventure.”

Alan Bennett’s perception of the police reaction is not uncommon. He was not doing anything provocative or illegal, but still he felt he was being regarded as the criminal rather than the victim. Imagine then the hesitation of those who are beaten up or robbed while they are cruising or cottaging. How can they be sure that they won’t get a hostile or humiliating reception from the police from whom they are seeking help?

Naturally the police have tried to offer reassurance. Whenever the boys in blue want information from the gay community they always pledge that no questions will be asked about why we were in a particular place at a particular time. We are told that the victims of violent homophobes will be treated sympathetically. But how sure can we be of this? How effectively do the politically correct pronouncements that come from police authorities filter down into the ranks?

According to a report in The Times, “a national assessment centre rejected more than 1,200 out of 6,300 potential police recruits because they failed crucial tests and so were suspected of being racist, biased against other minorities or sexist.”

This should be reassuring. It suggests that many of the police recruits who would formerly have sustained and reinforced the notoriously macho “canteen culture” in police stations will never now make it into uniform. But the apparently rigid selection procedure is less reassuring when you open The Liverpool Daily Post and read that the Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside is investigating 22 constables and support staff over “abhorrent” material found in their workplace emails.

The Press Association reported: “Offensive emails about blacks, gays and women sent by police officers range from ‘disgusting’ to ‘minor jocular stuff’. Thirty-five police officers and support staff from Merseyside Police face the sack after the discovery of the racist, sexist and homophobic emails.”

It’s a difficult business but, to be fair, there are great efforts being made in some police forces to eradicate homophobia – or at least make it an unacceptable part of the way officers work.

Reporting these efforts in the BBC Online Magazine, Tom Geoghegan revealed that “All new applicants to police forces in England and Wales are now given the option to declare their sexuality, in a move welcomed by gay campaign groups.”

But is it safe to do so?

The article quotes PC Andy Hewett of Lambeth Police in London who is not only an out gay man, but has also revealed his HIV status – the first policeman in this country to do so.

“There has definitely been a culture change since I joined 11 years ago,” he says. “The language and the terminology evident in the canteen among senior officers would not be tolerated today.”

Andy spends two hours with every new police officer and council warden in the borough to “discuss and challenge stereotypes around lesbians, gays and HIV”. But even he admits that his experience is not necessarily typical, and some forces in other parts of the country still have a long way to go. Even so, there has been rapid progress.

Tayside police have invited a retired police constable, Vic Codling, to teach its Human Resources department about being more inclusive. This invitation is quite a surprise to Mr Codling who says he would probably have been sacked if he had come out when he joined Durham Constabulary in 1971. “There has been a dramatic improvement,” he is quoted as saying. “But it’s still not right. There are still forces where no-one is openly gay. And there are still a number of examples of prejudice. Officers have had their property damaged by colleagues because it was suspected or known they are gay.”

Andy Hewlett thinks that the perception of the police as being unsympathetic to gay victims of crime is lagging. “I talk a lot to gay groups and their perceptions are still 10 years behind what the police are actually doing,” he says.

Let’s hope he is right and that the gay people most in need of their support can feel absolutely confident that the police will be on their side.