As from PO BOX 464 London SE25 4AT

Croydon’s LGBT Community                     www.cags.org.uk                        info@cags.org.uk

Dear Gay Police Association,

I am writing on behalf of CAGS, Croydon’s LGBT community group. We know that you have come in for criticism for your advertisement “in the name of the father in the Guardian recently. We believe you were putting over an important message and one that needed to be advertised.

It is very difficult to get accurate figures on hate crime against LGBT people, but reports of religiously motivated attacks on gay people across the world have risen remarkably in the last year or so. The appended extracts from the press span only the last three weeks. They don’t even include African countries, or incidents in the notoriously violent Caribbean where things have got very much worse in recent years. The rise in attacks on LGBT people world-wide is remarkable.

These incidents are not supported by religion generally, but it is common for the perpetrators – often clerics – to rationalise their activities on what they claim are religious grounds.

This has happened in several European and English-speaking countries and there is growing evidence that the UK is no exception.

No sooner had the Regulations on Equality at Work been passed three years ago, than several illegal sackings of gay employees followed. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recently sacked his press aide for being gay – he later paid compensation, but this example shows that religiously motivated illegal sackings have still not stopped.

Already clerics and religious groups have advertised that they will break the Regulations on Equality in Goods and Services when they become law. The fact that they don’t even know what the Regulations will say shows how determined they are.

It is clear that the advertisement could give offence to some religious people, and may be the image of the Bible and the phrase ‘in the name of the father’ was pushing the bounds of acceptability. But the message is one that needs to be stated.

Apart from the usual extreme pronouncements by leaders from several religions, and the customary religious attitudes that LGBT people endure, we have a new rise in religiously motivated hate crime. It is important to draw attention to this – not just because the situation is escalating, but because a growing number of religious figures and bodies are publicly declaring their intent to break the law in order to abuse LGBT people.

This needs to be drawn to the attention of public and police, and you were right to do so.

CAGS, Croydon’s LGBT community group
www.cags.org.uk