Bishop Michael Curry's royal wedding sermon on love exposed hate in Australia

Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon was full of surprises, but reviews by some in Sydney church circles exposed the ugly underbelly of a war against inclusive values.

Some Australian churches represent the flipside of Bishop Curry’s internationally broadcast message: one of breaking down barriers and promoting acceptance.

The most shocking aspect of his address, is that he would not be heard from a pulpit in Sydney. In much of Australia (and many parts of the world), the celebrated American preacher is on the banned list for his position on marriage equality.

Most would be surprised that while Australian Anglican clergy can bless pets, boats and toilets, we cannot bless same-sex couples without the wrath of our employers falling upon us – not forgetting that legislation enacted to protect employees from discrimination, abuse and failure of process doesn’t apply to church workers.

Church leaders such as Bishop Curry regularly connect the abolition of slavery with the Christian message, but when his diocese (and a very few others) moved to end discrimination and injustice against LGBT+ people they were cut off from much of the Anglican church: notably the Anglican diocese of Sydney.

Australians cannot pretend that we are singing from the same hymn sheet that was used in Windsor.

The same intolerance that opposed Australian marriage equality, to the tune of millions of dollars, now puts public money where its mouth is through tax exemptions which feed the Trojan horse of “religious freedom”, in order to attack the very values that ought to be universal.

The gift that the royal couple gave to the world didn’t arrive in a gold carriage, but through a microphone-like leaflet dropped into occupied territory. The message that love is love, hatred (even faith-based) is hatred, and that the modern world can see past fairytales.

The Venerable Peter MacLeod-Miller, Archdeacon of Albury and the Hume
Albury, Australia

That many commentators of the royal wedding should express surprise at the bishop’s sermon is a reflection of the ignorance of all too many in our country.

Confident proclamation of the love of God is heard regularly in churches across the nation, and these are the churches which are growing because people find truth and reality in the power of love to change and transform lives, all too often broken as a result of seeking after materialism or escapes from reality such as alcohol, drugs or gambling.

I am sure the Queen was included in the number who were delighted to hear someone excited about the love of God, which has been at the heart of her successful life of service to our nation.

J Longstaff
Buxted

Grenfell inquiry exposes Home Office flaws

Given that the Home Office has been shown, yet again, to have been incompetent and/or malicious, this time with regard to those wishing to attend the Grenfell inquiry, isn’t it time we have an inquiry into the Home Office itself, hopefully leading to a root-and-branch reform?

Joanna Pallister
Address supplied

Clichés – done right – can be a delight

Bruce Napier’s tongue-in-cheek letter, made entirely of proverbs and idioms, brought a smile. Way back in the 1980s, punk band Splodgenessabounds did the same for their wonderfully catchy ska single, “Mouth And Trousers” (sadly not a hit), which the likes of Bad Manners and Madness would have given their eye’s teeth (sorry!) to have written.

Sadly, a certain Wayne Hussey from Dead or Alive did not get the gag, and his subsequent goth giants The Mission became a standing music industry joke for most of their lyrics being handfuls of random clichés. In March 2018, Rob Manuel of website B3ta put all their lyrics through a Markov chain as an experiment. It was almost impossible to tell the Markovian random generations from the actual lyrics.

Mark Boyle
Renfrewshire

What, exactly, are the benefits of Brexit?

So Brexit will rob us of yet another benefit (your article on European Arrest Warrants). Can anyone name any benefit as a result of Brexit, because all I can see is all the things that are going to get worse? Can we not admit that we just made a big mistake, and go back to where we were two years ago?

Steve Mumby
Bournemouth

Definitions

What’s the collective noun for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex? The Sussices?

Geoffrey Downs
Wilsden