Peter Tatchell's Outing will re-fuel homophobia

OUTRAGE MUST STOP. With his latest "Outing" effort on the Anglican bishop of London, Peter Tatc,hell and his gang risk igniting the kind of homophobia that Cardinal Basil Hume denounced only last week. It takes but one Outrageous gesture to destroy the patient, painstaking construction of a fragile goodwill erected by pleas for compassion and clemency.
Many men and women have suffered the outsider's loneliness sometimes dictated by prejudice against their colour, race, creed, gender, sexuality. To be victimised, to be the object of prejudice and scorn, to be bullied: we, as Christians, would not wish this fate upon anyone. Even though we remember that "those who suffer He delivers in their suffering", we know we must try to stem the tide of injustice in the here-and-now. Every slight, every slander is a challenge to us as good people to redress the wrongs that others may inflict. As the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has written in his new book, Faith in the Future, "In the beginning, God created the world as a home for humanity. Since then, he has challenged man to create a world that will be home for him."
We seek, then, to create a home for humanity and a home for God. How do the actions of people like Peter Tatchell fit into this scheme of a decent humanity? Most uneasily. Tatchell's end a society in which to be a homosexual does not mean the forfeiting of rights may be consistent with the compassion and fraternity at the core of Christian doctrine. But his means intimidation, veiled blackmail, and threats smack of fascism rather than Christianity.