Traditional Anglicans - whether in Nigeria or Nottingham - have been wary, at best, of the acceptance and welcome given to gay men and women and their sexual choices by secular society.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which we are not women; that's essentially what it is.
I suppose I'm a cultural Anglican, and I see evensong in a country church through much the same eyes as I see a village cricket match on the village green. I have a certain love for it.
In the 21st century, I think it's fair to say, homosexuality is more accepted in Britain and it's wonderful that my generation has been able to grow up with that.
I have to be careful, as I don't want to offend Midlanders, but growing up, it wasn't like growing up in London. Anything you were interested in, you'd be able to find someone also interested in it. In the Midlands, nobody came out as gay at my school at all.
I am pleased now that I have lived in a gay as well as a religious ghetto, though it hasn't been very comfortable. Taken together, their limitations cancel each other out and I have seen the world more kindly and more honestly.
One of the things I find depressing about some of the upper echelons of Anglicanism on both sides of the Atlantic is that it's sort of taken for granted that we all basically know what's in the Bible, and so we just glance at a few verses for devotional purposes and then get on to the real business.
In the nineteenth century, many Anglican theologians, both evangelical and catholic, embraced positively the proposal of evolution.
In Holland, homosexuality is treated the same way as heterosexuality. In what Islamic country does that happen?
At the time I perceived most religious men, particularly the pastors with all their talk about love, faith and relationship, as effeminate.
I've heard other gay people say when they were growing up they felt 'foreign.' Growing up, I was able to label these feelings as: 'I'm a Protestant.' It wasn't until I left, I thought: 'Oh, those weren't Protestant feelings.'
No opposing quotes found.