LGBT responds to hate

The Saints LGBT society was shocked last week to have received an aggressive hate email from an anonymous sender. The content seems to be vehemently criticising their recently publicised event, Debate and Talk: The Biblical Evidence that Jesus Was Gay, to be chaired by Dr Keith Sharpe and based on his book,The Gay Gospels, whose central claim is that the Bible affirms God’s love for all LGBT people. The email starts off by daring the society to ‘try suggesting Muhammad was gay’ – who, by the way, does not deserve a capital ‘M’ in the original… Anyway, let’s pretend this comment is relevant and not  full of nasty implications about the Muslim community – but ‘gay’ as an insult, really? Wrong society to send this message to.

It gets better. The last sentence of this highly constructive piece of criticism focuses on the ‘colossal waste of funding’ that the society represents. Thanks, pal – you’re right, promoting equality is a waste of money. Your reasoning makes so much sense: the Saints LGBT obviously spent extravagant amounts of your money on… a talk? Not sure – even if poster printing is expensive these days. To spice things up, attacks to members of the LGBT community were made all through the message using colourful vocabulary, to say the least.

Needless to say that measures have been taken in order to identify the offender. The police have been informed and are currently in touch with the Committee regarding this displeasing matter. The police, as well as the University, have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hate crimes, within or without the student body, and have taken action in the past to reprimand any form of discrimination.

It is a shame, indeed, that such harmful feedback should be sent, in particular through the cowardly medium of emailing – ‘Sent from my BlackBerry®’. The Saints LGBT society takes pride in being a society open to constructive criticism, whether formal or informal, and encourages people to express themselves freely. This is what a debate is for, and someone could have gathered the courage to raise their hands, on Monday 20th Feb at 7pm in School 3, and asked: ‘How do you think people would react if you set up a debate on Muhammad’s sexual orientation?’.

If you have questions regarding any LGBT issue, you should also attend Queer Question Time, Friday 17th Feb at 8pm, Venue 2. Also, Don’t hesitate to send (nicer) emails to [email protected]

Written by Léa Duchemin, standpoint writer