Why This Gay Woman Pities Cardinal Keith O'Brien

By Alice Arnold
The Telegraph
March 5, 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/9909408/Why-this-gay-woman-pities-Cardinal-Keith-OBrien.html

Cardinal O'Brien issued confesse that his 'sexual conduct' had fallen far below the standard expected

Cardinal Keith O'Brien's 'sexual conduct' has rightly left many gay men and women feeling furious and damaged. Ironically it is his hypocritical intolerance for homosexuality that has ended up harming his "physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing", writes Alice Arnold.

Homosexuality is “harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved”. So says Cardinal Keith O’Brien. I will be the first to admit that in his case this has been absolutely true. Of course while the Cardinal, or rather ex Cardinal, suffers with his conscience the topic of homosexuality in the Catholic Church comes to the fore once again.

I have made no bones about the fact that I am not a religious person and normally I would leave the Church to its own devices. However, the Catholic Church is such a huge institution influencing opinion over great swathes of the earth; it would be churlish to ignore it.

Do we feel sorry for Keith? That’s the question on which listeners were asked to give their opinion on BBC 5 Live yesterday morning. Well personally, yes I suppose I do, in the way that I feel sorry for anyone who is clearly going through turmoil and sees his life’s work reduced to hypocritical rantings.

On all other levels though I can’t feel sorry for him at all. It is attitudes such as his that have caused so much pain and suffering to others. As a man of the church it’s not a great legacy is it?

It is no secret that many of the male clergy in all denominations are gay. Without the gays the church would fall apart. I have met lots of them. There is no problem. The problem only comes when people are told that what they are is wrong. They then learn to hate themselves. I was always told that if you couldn’t love yourself then you couldn’t love anyone else and that’s the crux of it. The church becomes full of confused men grappling with their sexuality, trying to suppress it and failing.

Their failure leads to self-loathing. Consequently anger and loathing spreads in their ministry to do irreparable damage to their congregations.

There is no accusation of anything illegal in Cardinal O’Brien’s behaviour. We don’t know the details but it appears there may have been some ‘drunken fumblings’. In itself this surely can’t be a huge issue. The problem comes in the hypocrisy and yet another case of a ‘cover up’ which is where the church has inflicted its most striking blow to equality.

I feel sorry for my gay male friends. Yes, of course homophobia exists for both sexes but the element of paedophilia is almost entirely reserved for men. The assumption that a gay man would automatically be interested in young boys is so often made by the ignorant masses. Gay women do not face that accusation. We hold a different threat. We hold the threat that we don’t need men in our lives. We don’t need to make ourselves attractive to them or seek their approval. That is of course very, very scary for some men to compute…but it’s not illegal or morally repugnant.

As a gay woman I get pretty cross with the Catholic Church. If I were a gay man I would be positively fuming. I imagine church goers look to their priests for inspiration. They see them as people close to God, as slightly ‘better’ than themselves. Having a gay relationship is no barrier to that. Spreading intolerance is a barrier though, in fact not so much a barrier as a great big Berlin Wall. Just think what good you might have been able to do if you had been honest?

No, Cardinal O’Brien, there is nothing “harmful to my spiritual, mental or physical health”, I’ve just been on holiday, I’ve had the sun on my face and a really relaxing week. I couldn’t feel better. With some love and honesty in your heart you could have felt that way too.