Sir, — Thank you for your comprehensive and fair article (Gazette, July/August 2025) on the Pride Service in Christ Church Cathedral on Friday 13th June 2025. I wholeheartedly agree with Canon Kevin O’Brien’s assessment of Bishop Perry’s address. There’s a striking contrast between the radiant, Christian joy on the faces of those who took part in the service and the dour, miserable, un-Christlike expressions of those who opposed it.
People opposed to the inclusion of LGBT+ people in the life of the Church usually base their argument on a few isolated biblical texts such as Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26–27, and other verses from the letters of St Paul. But all those verses concern lust and idolatry and are a million miles away from the deep love and faith of people who want to commit themselves for life in a same-sex partnership. For this we have good biblical examples, such as David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi:
“The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul… Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1, 3).
When David and Jonathan had to separate because Saul was trying to kill David, we read: “They kissed one another and wept one with another, until David exceeded” (1 Samuel 20:41). And when Jonathan was killed in battle, we hear David’s lament: “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).
Similarly, Ruth said to Naomi: “Where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16–17).
Many years ago I remember Cardinal Hume saying, “All love is of God, and that includes the love between two people of the same sex.” And back in the 12th century, St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “It is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists.” Those words are clearly applicable both for a man and a woman and for two people of the same sex.
Canon 31 of the Church law addresses the problem of adultery and extra-marital affairs and is not an exclusive definition of marriage. The Lord Jesus left only two laws, repeated at the beginning of the Communion Service in the Book of Common Prayer: to love God and to love our neighbour. Surely our neighbour includes our LGBT+ neighbour?
Every blessing to the Gazette for keeping this important debate going.
The Reverend Paul Symonds
(Retired cleric of another denomination and member of the congregation of Belfast Cathedral)