LGCM launch new campaign to help Lesbian and Gay Asylum seekers

The Church of England General Synod passed a motion condemning government policy on Asylum Seekers.

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement called into question the right of many in Synod to adopt a high moral tone on this when they themselves give encouragements to Churches in the Global South who support anti-homosexual laws that force many lesbian and gay people to flee their countries.

The general secretary of LGCM the Revd Richard Kirker launched a new campaign to press UK Church leaders to use their influence on Churches and Governments throughout the world where homosexual people are still murdered, tortured and imprisoned because of the sexuality Speaking today 17th February 2004 he said:

"It is unbelievable that the Church of England should criticise anyone on the treatment of Asylum Seekers.

"Several bishops and Anglican Church leaders heap praise and encouragement on Anglican Churches who are virulently anti-homosexual. These Churches are well known in supporting appalling laws that punish and humiliate people just because of their sexuality.

"We call on those bishops and Church leaders who have influence in the so called "orthodox Global South" to express their horror and dismay at the absence of human rights for lesbian and gay people. They are often among the most "marginalised and persecuted" and these leaders need to condemn the laws that imprison them or send them to the gallows.

"We are daily dealing with victims who flee imprisonment and worse at the hands of oppressive regimes in Africa and Asia. One of our speakers from the Manchester Conference returned to his home in Uganda to find it ransacked by security agents and an arrest warrant was issued and he has since been in hiding.

"The Church can have no credibility when it criticises the government here dealing with those forced from their country while at the same time they encourage the oppression that led them to flee.

"Neither can Church leaders wash their hands of these oppressive laws. They are nearly always part of the same legacy of empire that gave the Anglican Church its presence throughout the world -historically they are our laws - now we must see them wiped off the face of the earth."

ENDS

NOTES:

LGCM will be writing to every bishop and organisation involved in supporting the Churches of the Global South urging them to declare their opposition to discriminatory laws that persecute lesbian and gay people for their sexuality.

The motion passed - from the Church Times

That this Synod, in the light of Scriptural teaching about care for the vulnerable, welcome for strangers and foreigners and the Church's calling to reach out to the marginalised and persecuted

(a) applaud the responses made by congregations and coalitions of churches working with other faith communities and voluntary organisations in responding to the needs of refugees and asylum-seekers;

(b) welcome the contributions made to our Churches and national life by asylum-seekers and other migrants;

(c) express its deep concern over the vilifying in the media of those seeking asylum; and actively support the efforts of church and secular groups who are seeking to promote a balanced treatment of asylum-seekers by the media;

(d) condemn the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable by organised criminals engaged in illegal trafficking;

(e) call upon Her Majesty's Government (i) to deliver an asylum system characterised by the quality, speed and justice of its decision-making, its respect for human rights and its care for the most vulnerable; and to ensure that the vital safeguards of appeal and judicial review are not removed by current legislation; (ii) to ensure that no person is left homeless or destitute at any point during the process of an application for asylum up to the actual removal of failed applicants at the port of departure; (iii) to ensure that its presentation of policy and acting towards asylum-seekers does not promote a negative image of vulnerable people; (iv) to raise public awareness of the global phenomenon of migration including the needs of asylum-seekers, economic migrants and displaced people and the disproportionate burden borne by developing countries; and

(f) request the Mission and Public Affairs Council to: (i) study the arguments advanced from several quarters about a more positive approach to asylum-seekers many of whom have skills and motivation that Britain badly needs; and (ii) report to this Synod within 12 months of this debate on its findings and the action it has taken.