It was mental torture in the dark of night. It was a vivid illustration of assertive Islam and at the end, too, it was an illustration of the uncertain response of the Nigerian churches.

We had enjoyed a wonderful Easter Day. We – my wife Sally, our two pre-teen daughters and I – were visiting Jos in middle-belt Nigeria to experience family life on the Christian frontline and to see and support the orphanage run by Gloria, the inspirational wife of Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos.

The city is historically and predominantly Christian and is located on a territorial promontory at the north end of Plateau State, surrounded on three sides by two of northern Nigeria’s twelve Sharia states. Over the years there have been major and fatal Muslim/Christian clashes along its dusty poverty-stricken streets and the al Qaeda-linked group Boko Haram has targeted the city too.

Indeed on Easter morning we celebrated the Resurrection at one such target, the city centre church that was hit by a Boko Haram suicide car bomb on a busy Sunday morning in February last year, mercifully avoiding a carnage and killing just four worshippers. Amidst high security at the church entrance we walked by the car’s remains, preserved as a macabre memorial to the deceased and memento of God’s grace. The packed church, the apparent lack of fear and the lively but dignified Easter worship were uplifting.

But at 4.30am the following morning I was awoken by the loud wail of the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. There was nothing exceptional about this as we were staying with a local family in a mixed, albeit Christian-majority, area of the city. But we were then unexpectedly subjected to a provocative hour-long full-blast sermon in native Hausa which reverberated brutally around the houses. There was no choice, no respite and no possibility of sleep. It was menacingly oppressive. I lay in bed in the dark grinding my teeth at the racket, at the audacity of the mosque and at the apparent inability of the city authorities to stop such night-time dhimmitude being forced onto the predominantly Christian neighbourhood.

The sermon ceased at 5.30am and I rolled over to try to get some sleep. But at 6am I was aroused again, this time by Gospel music pumped out across the community. It was at a lower decibel level than the sermon and less overbearing. Nonetheless it was broadcast by a controversial Christian woman who against the wishes of other local Christians insisted on making a very obvious tit-for-tat point to the mosque and her Muslim neighbours.

The whole pre-dawn episode neatly encapsulated the tense situation both in middle-belt Jos and also across northern Nigeria where Christians are very much the minority. Society is now divided primarily along religious lines, and an assertive territorial Islam with its violent fringe faces down a Christianity that is subject to and seething at Muslim aggressiveness, yet fractured and uncertain in its response. In view of civil and military authorities’ inability to restrain the harassment, persecution and violence, the issue has become theological: do Christians passively turn the other cheek and leave vindication to the Lord; do they actively defend their families and churches if necessary by equally assertive means; or do they flee from evil and emigrate south?

On a completely different dimension was our time with Mrs Kwashi. We visited her orphan school, Zambiri Outreach and Care Centre, where amidst grinding deprivation 470 children are taught by 8 staff. Up to 140 are packed into each of the small rudimentary classrooms and at lunchtime they receive a bowl of rice, for many their only meal of the day. It was the morning of their Easter indoor picnic, and for a few hours laughter, singing and dancing covered over the underlying tragedy of many broken young lives.

We also visited the archiepiscopal home where amongst the monkeys, ostriches, peacocks, geese and long-horned cattle that inhabit the compound we met the 48 orphans who are loved by and live as family with the Kwashis, many taking on the Kwashi family name.

Archbishop Ben joined us dressed in American-style sleeveless T-shirt and long shorts. He had been teaching basketball to a lanky 14 year old. “I was good in my youth but age takes its toll,“ he grinned.

Some told us through tears how they had been rescued by Gloria, “Mama Kwashi” they call her gratefully. Six are HIV positive, one has been burnt as a witch, another is crippled, most have been abandoned, many have been starved and beaten, some have been raped.

But all now have received the liberating love of a new committed mother and father – Christ’s love mediated through an extraordinary Christian couple. This is divine love in action on the Nigerian front-line and young lives are being transformed. It is a wonder to behold.

(This post first appeared as an article published in this week’s edition of The Church of England Newspaper.)

This weekend’s horror story about the illiterate Indian woman who was enslaved, beaten, raped and starved at the hands of three different families in Middlesex (here) is appalling but of less surprise to me following an informative but distressing Oxford conference on human trafficking that I found myself chairing last weekend.

It is 200 years since the UK government abolished slavery and the slave trade and began to enforce abolition around the globe thanks to the then all-powerful British Navy. Yet we were told by speaker Ben Cooley of Hope for Justice (here) that there were over 2,000 identified trafficking victims here in the UK in 2011 and that the real rate of trafficking for sexual, criminal and work purposes is substantially higher. Another speaker, Sgt Dave Turtle of the Met Police, confirmed that both migrant and internal trafficking is rife in the UK and that rates of successful prosecution are disturbingly low.

The Voice for Justice UK (here) conference included talks by the vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking Michael Connarty MP and another Labour MP Jim Dobbin. But it was clinical psychologist Josephine-Joy Wright and convenor of the Lords and Commons Family & Child Protection Group Lisa Nolland who challenged us most.

Josephine-Joy stirred us with horrific stories about her patients. She told us of young women who are unable to have children because of physical damage from being repeatedly raped and others with appalling mental scars from years of abuse and exploitation. “In Britain we still have the mentality of ‘not in my back yard’,” she said. “So open your eyes. See what’s going on under our noses. Learn the children’s language so you can spot the signs,”

Lisa traced the sexualisation of society and our children back to the junk science of 1950s father of sex research Alfred Kinsey who was himself a sex pervert and who abused children in order to gain statistics on ‘child sexuality’ (here). His impact on western society has been profound and the resulting ‘anything goes’ sex ethos makes it difficult to protect children. Lisa didn’t mention it but the BBC’s liberal luvvy culture that allowed Jimmy Savile and other celebrity child abusers to flourish is, presumably, a case in point.

So slavery and human trafficking is alive and well in the UK. Indeed Oxford has had a Rochdale-style child sex ring in its own back yard (here). Ben Cooley told us that 21st century anti-trafficking campaigners are standing on the shoulders of abolitionists like William Wilberforce (here). Wilberforce must be turning in his grave at the extent of today’s slavery, two centuries after he thought he had terminated the trade.

There were a hundred people at the conference; there ought to have been a thousand. They were mainly middle-aged; where were the city’s young people and university students?

Josephine-Joy was right. There is much work to be done.

(My promised Unequal Marriage 2 has been postponed for the moment – but not cancelled.)

Spending last Sunday afternoon at Trafalgar Square in a biting wind and at zero degrees was a strangely warming and encouraging experience.

The youthful London-based French group La Manif Pour Tous A Londres (here) held a rally in favour of traditional marriage and for some weeks previously I had been helping them with their planning. Their aim was to join with the proposed massive rally in Paris on the same day (here) to protest against President Hollande’s plans for same-sex marriage, but they were pleased also to include our opposition to David Cameron’s rushed, muddled, unnecessary, unmandated and destructive Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill.

The French Tricolour and the British Union Jack flew together united in favour of real marriage but under the stony one-eyed Francophobic glare of Admiral Nelson, an irony I referred to from the platform which was picked up by The Independent (here). A French event in Trafalgar Square made front-page news in Paris-published Le Figaro too (here).

Strident, abusive, hate-fuelled, foul-mouthed and anti-family, the inevitable gay counter-demo was there as well – maybe 100 of them compared with some 2,500 at the rally. And my pre-teen daughters – who were enjoying our cheerful array of balloons, flags and banners – giggled with shock when one gay publicity-seeker wanting her five minutes of fame (here) climbed up amongst Landseer’s bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s column, unbuttoned her top and exposed her duct-tape-covered nipples to the freezing wind and laughing world. “Won’t it hurt when she strips the tape off afterwards?” asked the younger one, genuinely concerned.

One man highlighted the nasty child-unfriendly nature of the gay counter-demo. He took real pleasure in going around bursting kids’ balloons with a pin; in one case he was seen to wrench a balloon out of a little girl’s hands and stamp on it. Same-sex marriage is a sterile adult-centred anti-family concept at the best of times and this vicious bully amply illustrated the fact.

“Vive Le Mariage” was a chant from the platform and it seemed rapidly to become the rally’s cold-defying battle-cry. Downing Street is just a few hundred metres from Trafalgar Square: “David Cameron, are you listening?” we bellowed.

“We hate no-one. We love everyone. We love marriage,” we chanted. Yes, I know, it’s simplistic – but it was effective in portraying our essential message.

So far the prime minister seems as deaf as Nelson’s statue and just as elevated above the real world of ordinary people. If he proceeds with his same-sex marriage legislation we can hope that soon his tenure at No 10 will be history too.

What’s in a word?

I’ve told the story before (here) about how, during negotiations with Policy Exchange – David Cameron’s favourite think tank – over the terms of a proposed same-sex marriage debate, they became distinctly frosty when I challenged their assertion that gay marriage should be called ‘equal marriage’ with an insistence that conventional marriage should therefore be called ‘real marriage’.

There was another entertaining incident last month while I stood at the gates of Downing Street. Half a dozen chairmen of local Conservative associations went to the door of No 10 in front of TV cameras to deliver a letter to the prime minister signed by 25 senior party colleagues that protested against the government’s same-sex marriage legislation (here). Peter Tatchell got wind of this, grabbed the opportunity for media publicity and rushed to the gates to bellow his usual hate speech about homophobes at full volume down the length of the historic and world-famous cul-de-sac.

He also held up a poster: “End ban on same-sex marriage. Marriage Equality!” it proclaimed. With equivalent Alice-in-Wonderland logic and a wish to flap his wings and fly, he could have urged the government, “End pull of gravity. Bird Equality!”

The gay lobby and their useful idiots in the government and media have brilliantly manipulated the limited public debate about same-sex marriage by capturing the word ‘equality’. But by framing it as an equalities and human rights issue (eg here) they have messed with our language and wilfully disregarded the underlying realities.

The problem is that biology, nature or God (which I prefer, of course) has ensured that a same-sex couple can never undertake the act of marriage no matter how much they love each other or how long they live together. Two men (or two women) are physically unable to be naturally intimate and consummate their union through an activity that unites them and has the potential to reproduce and provide the next generation.

This is the essence of marriage and, further, in its purest ideal it is the private act that follows the public exchange of vows and signing of public documents; it is the intimate deed of physical and spiritual union that on the marriage night completes the coming together of two individuals and engages them in the mystical mathematics of procreation: 1+1 = 1 = 3+. It is consummation which transforms the marriage ceremony from a contract to a covenant.

I’m aware of course that the ideal is more honoured in the breach than the observance as today few couples refrain from sexual relations until the wedding night and many choose to co-habit rather than marry. But, for instance, financial honesty is another ideal that is vital to society’s wellbeing and is enshrined in the nation’s law. The fact that it is breached by everyone from corporate fat-cat tax fiddlers to single mums who falsely claim benefits and students who bunk the bus doesn’t deny the importance of the ideal. We have not (yet) attempted to redefine honesty and make it more inclusive such that fallen former MP Margaret Moran (here) could suddenly find herself re-included in the ranks of the righteous and her court sentence and criminal record scrubbed.

I am also aware that by choice or disability some married couples do not procreate. But this too doesn’t change the marriage ideal or its social value.

Of course two men or two women can have a legally-defined relationship which may or may not be called a civil partnership. A lesbian couple or two spinster sisters may love each other and live together all their adult lives; certainly where necessary the state ought to provide for them by statute. (The state currently and unfairly provides for the first but not the second (here).) But they can no more be married than they can defy gravity.

Consummation is so central to marriage that it too is enshrined in the nation’s law which decrees that marriage is voidable if it is not consummated (here).

This is the crux of the matter: the hard reality is that consummation physically cannot take place except between heterosexuals so the government has been forced to fudge and create a fundamental inequality in its ‘equal marriage’. Through the legislation and unlike heterosexual couples, same-sex couples will be exempted from any need to consummate their ‘marriage’.

So what’s in the word? They are married but not married. They are one but not one. They are the same but not the same. They are equivalent but certainly not equal.

It is Through The Looking-Glass stuff and a socially destructive confusion of the meaning of marriage by the government: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less” (here).

In the next post we will look at other inequalities and the discrimination against minorities that will be created if the Bill becomes law. Meanwhile I’m praying that politically the Dumpty in Downing Street has a great fall over his Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.

It is an untruth universally acknowledged amongst western liberal academics like South Asia specialist Professor Barbara Metcalf that Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), the subcontinent-based but global Islamist group behind the West Ham mega-mosque project, doesn’t do politics. ‘A-political’, ‘detached’ and ‘quietist’ is how she describes them, and she also likes to equate them with the inoffensive and commendable self-help group Alcoholics Anonymous (here).

Duh! Is such blindness and blandness wilful? It is certainly influential. So the question must be asked: What is Ms Metcalf”s agenda? Or, worse, who funds her professorial chair and skews her analysis?

Mind you, I have to concede that TJ’s statement about the 300-strong protest outside Newham Town Hall two weeks ago (here) by the recently-formed Newham People’s Alliance (NPA) seems – on the surface – to support Professor Metcalf’s thesis.

NPA, which calls itself a non-partisan multi-faith, multi-party pressure group, held the demo to protest against Newham Council’s current High Court action to remove TJ from their West Ham site (here). This action has been parallel to but separate from the Council’s recent rejection of TJ’s planning application for a 9,500 capacity mega-mosque on the site (here).

NPA is not as diverse and inclusive as it claims. It is overwhelmingly Muslim in membership, holds its meetings inside mosques, distributes its leaflets outside mosques and uses Islamic words like mashwera in its notices (here). Significantly it also has links with the inimitable George Galloway MP (here) who, attired entirely in black, graced Newham with his presence after Christmas and, in a master-stroke of opportunism, relaunched the Newham branch of his Respect party on the back of Muslim anger over the rejection of the mega-mosque planning application (here).

(Just this week Galloway and NPA came together at a meeting to launch what they call a ‘Newham Spring’ revolution to sweep Sir Robin Wales, Newham’s autocratic Labour mayor, from power like a Tunisian or Egyptian president (here). Of course in fact Galloway and his friends could only trigger a Newham Winter and dump us out of the Labour frying pan into the combustible fire-ice of east London Muslim politics. But at the launch event hundreds turned up to hear him speak (here). Watch this space.)

So NPA held the Town Hall demo in support of the mega-mosque – but the mega-mosque trustees objected to it strongly. They issued a public statement condemning NPA for calling the protest and for using the mega-mosque rejection for political benefit. “This is a planning issue which these people are trying to hijack for their political gain,” complained the trustees. In other words, “TJ are peaceful. We do mosque planning not street politics.” Professor Metcalf would applaud.

But their statement was itself merely a political PR manoeuvre designed to persuade Newham Council that they want to work cooperatively in order to submit a revised planning application as soon as possible and convince them that political pressure through street demos is not the TJ way. This of course is nonsense:

The Council planning committee met to review the original planning application just over two months ago. A week before the meeting, controversial cleric Sheikh Haitham al- Haddad (here) issued a call on behalf of “the brothers who are in charge of the markaz” (the TJ trustees) for 15,000 supporters to demonstrate outside the town hall on 5th December in order to put pressure on the committee members meeting inside (here). In the event 3,000 turned up, and when I approached the demonstrators – who were peaceful and friendly – I was formally introduced to TJ trustees who were there approving and participating.

TJ uses various techniques to pressurise and persuade. Last October when our campaign against the mega-mosque planning application was gaining traction and likely to be successful (here)  I received an email from a Dr Sohail Hameed, Chairman of Hainault & Chigwell Muslim Association, threatening me with legal action because I was “spreading violence and stirring racism” and “hurting feelings of billions of Muslims living worldwide”. He wrote, “I like to give you formal NOTICE to stop negative and baseless without any evidence propaganda against Muslims and Islam and Holy Quran. It is illegal because you are spreading racism.”

I emailed Dr Hameed that I was not spreading racism, that I stand firmly against any form of racism, and that I would be happy to meet with him to discuss his allegations.

In reply he dropped his claims of racism to accuse me instead of illegal “spreading religious hatred”. He refused to meet because he was “very busy with our planning application”. He said he would see me in court…

TJ uses other methods too including electioneering. In April 2010 when I was campaigning for re-election as a Newham councillor and also campaigning hard against the mega-mosque, a local Pakistani Muslim convert to Christianity I know received a knock on the door. He immediately recognised his visitors as TJ followers and they, thinking he was Muslim, gave him an election flyer. Entitled “Alan Craig is an enemy of Islam”, the flyer quoted dramatically out of context some “very untrue, bad and offensive things” I have written about Islam’s Prophet on this blog (here). The flyer urged electors to vote Labour “as they have the best chance of getting rid of Alan Craig as Councillor”.

No doubt the flyer persuaded some of my Muslim supporters against me and reduced my total votes. But thankfully it didn’t decide the election outcome which was driven by other factors.

Also, in November 2007, just over a year after our campaign against the mega-mosque started, a TJ supporter called Muhammad Abdullah, whose YouTube channel was linked publicly to the mega-mosque’s website, posted a video entitled ‘In Memory of Councillor Alan Craig’. This featured not only myself but my wife and two young daughters. Police arrested Abdullah, YouTube took down the video, and the incident received headlines in the press (here). I said it was either a sick joke or worse (here). Some reckoned it was definitely the latter (here). Either way, it was hostile and threatening. TJ was forced by the outcry to terminate the link and disassociate itself from the video.

So when Professor Metcalf claims that TJ is non-political, quietist and comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous, she is away with the fairies and maligning an admirable organisation that supports compulsive drinkers. It has to be asked again: What is Ms Metcalf’s agenda? Who funds her work?

Just one week into 2013 I broke my longstanding resolution to never make New Year’s resolutions! It was all because of a Lithuanian rough-sleeper I met.

Last Sunday night I was helping out at the Stratford Night Shelter for homeless people, run each winter by churches from this part of east London. A burly man in his forties sat alone eating supper so I joined him with my cuppa and, in his halting English, he told me his story.

His name is unpronounceable and, he said proudly, unique to Lithuanians like himself. He also speaks fluent Russian and Polish and has picked up some English since coming to the UK five years ago to work as a driver for a London-based Lithuanian company; most of the chat amongst colleagues at work was in their native language so his English is still limited.

A couple of years ago he was driving his van alone 150 miles from London in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by fields when he had a heart attack. He was isolated, didn’t (and still doesn’t) know where he was, couldn’t communicate properly in our language and hadn’t a clue how to contact emergency services of which anyway he had only hazy knowledge. There was no one about so his only option was to call his London office although he was unable to identify his location.

They in turn called the ambulance service who – here’s the modern miracle – managed to trace him via his mobile signal. In due course he was in hospital, his life saved.

Two years later he is now fully recovered with merely the need to take six pills a day subscribed by a GP – “they keep me alive”. The rescue, hospital and on-going health care have cost him nothing and his amazement and gratitude are palpable. “I don’t want to die,” he kept telling me.

Further, although his company has since closed its London operation and moved elsewhere in Europe making him redundant, he cannot return home. Medical treatment in Lithuania is very expensive so he couldn’t afford the vital medication and, worse, corruption is massive and endemic so he couldn’t afford the additional palm-greasing. “I have to live here to stay alive,” he said, even though currently for him living here means living on the streets – a fact of life which surprisingly doesn’t seem to bother him overmuch.

But I was interested in his overwhelming gratitude. In our cynical self-centred age where the dominant cultural discourse is about making demands, claiming rights and complaining, his appreciation of what the medical services have done for him seems childlike and naïve. But it is also refreshing, attractive and profoundly Christian whether he is a believer or not.

Inspired by him, my New Year’s resolution now is to be thankful daily for the healthy life I have been given and the prosperous technologically- and medically-advanced society into which I have been born and from which I benefit. These are none of my doing, so my gratitude is to the First Giver of that life, the One who decided into which society I should be born. After all it might have been poverty-stricken Afghanistan or Haiti – or corrupt Lithuania.

I am also grateful to the chief architect of the NHS and Labour’s post war Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan (here). He was ‘the most brilliant Minister of Health the country has ever had’ (British Medical Journal) who battled with his colleagues and opponents for the NHS core principle of ‘free at point of use’, even to the point of resignation from the government.

My Lithuanian friend is alive today in part because of that principle. And he’s thankful.

Over the past couple of years I’ve twice visited Jos in central Nigeria (here) and (here) and was overwhelmed by the tragedy of a formerly prosperous peaceful city being torn apart by Islamist incursion and violence from the Sharia states to the north. Fear and hostility were endemic; the compassion, courage and vibrancy of the Christians I met was a light in an increasingly fraught dark place.

One source of such light is an orphanage called Lambiri Outreach run by the formidable Mrs Gloria Kwashi, wife of the Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Ben. They have up to 40 (yes forty) children living in their home and in addition she runs a day school with 450 on its roll. I visited the school during my first visit and at the insistence of Mrs Kwashi gave each of the destitute kids their bowl of rice for lunch – the only meal of the day for some she told me – and had one for myself. It was heart-warming and heart-breaking stuff. Normally in Nigeria orphans are looked after by their wider extended family, but many of these are victims of the atrocities and have no other family.

Early last month I attended a Church of Nigeria conference (here) at the impressive national cathedral in Abuja with its extraordinary rotating altar and pulpit. The Church of Nigeria is part of the world-wide Anglican Communion, is rapidly growing with currently some 18 million members and is an example of vitality and commitment to the Gospel that declining Anglican churches in the West would do well to emulate. Nigerian Anglicans make mistakes no doubt and their enthusiastic worship is too loud for restrained English ears, but theirs is the mess and noise of the nursery not the morgue.

I emailed ahead to Mrs Kwashi to enquire if she would welcome supplies from the UK for her orphans – clothes, games, toys and sweets, I thought – as I was coming to Nigeria. “Children’s Christian books,” was the prompt reply. It was a quiet rebuke and reminder: the spiritual is as important as the material even when (especially when) like her you’re on the front line of the battle against poverty and violence. Mrs Kwashi has been horribly assaulted during a Muslim attack on their home yet she radiates joy, laughter – and the freedom that comes from forgiving her attackers.

We rapidly raised funds from fellow members of Highway Church (here), raided the CLC Bookshop near St Paul’s Cathedral and in due course I found myself presenting a suitcase-full of colourful Bible literature to the security scanner at Heathrow’s massive Terminal 5 en route to Abuja. From Abuja the books were couriered 100 miles by road to Jos to be received apparently with joy and gratitude. “I wish you saw (the children’s) excitement,” emailed Mrs Kwashi.

In 2010 after my first visit I helped set up LoveJos (here), an organisation whose prime aim is to raise awareness among Nigerians living in the UK about the Islamist war on the church in northern and central Nigeria. Most Nigerian Christians in Britain come originally from the south and many seem unaware or unconcerned. So as well as prayer meetings, LoveJos has also arranged a conference, organised a vigil outside the Nigerian High Commission, distributed information leaflets and remembered the Nigerian persecuted with the first annual LoveJos carol service earlier this month.

This last was an encouraging affair. Held at St John’s Stratford – the church at the heart of Christian hospitality and outreach during this summer’s Olympics in east London – the service was attended by more than 150 and included videos of Mrs Kwashi’s kids singing carols and reading Bible passages for us in Hausa, the majority language in northern Nigeria. You can watch highlights (here).

The carollers at St Johns were concerned, prayerful and generous, and as a result we were able to transfer £1,000 to Jos. Small beer of course considering the need across northern Nigeria, but hopefully a significant support for Zambiri Outreach children.

Our prayer is that the funds will be used to bring them some joy this Christmas. Faced with the on-going terrorist threat and grief and depravation, there’s not a lot for them to smile about.

Our gifts and books about Jesus will bring some vital love and excitement to their lives no doubt. But for the orphans as for us, real hope and joy are with Christ himself whose birth we celebrate tomorrow.

The growing row in the Tory party over gay marriage has been dubbed David Cameron’s Clause Four moment (here), but it isn’t. It’s his Munich moment, aka his Munich betrayal (here).

But there are differences between Neville Chamberlain and David Cameron. The former’s appeasement during that cataclysmic civilisational clash was sincere if misguided; the latter’s treachery on this different but deep civilisational issue is cynical and slickly perfidious. Chamberlain was forced into the Munich pact by Hitler’s aggression and a commendable fear of war; Cameron has freely chosen to aggressively crusade for same-sex marriage (SSM) when there is no need and miniscule demand. The pre-war premier’s democratic credentials and popular support were unquestionable; today’s has neither manifesto mandate nor the legitimacy derived from proper consultation (here).

It also could be Cameron’s Iraq moment. SSM will hopefully become a political lead weight round his neck that the Iraq war became to his model, hero and now public sunken wreck, Tony Blair.

Why? The good news is that Cameron’s gay marriage obsession is generating Tory grass-root rebellion and resignations (here) and recently colleagues and I have been doing our bit to help the haemorrhage of Tory membership. Given the increasing frenzy of shrill pro-SSM media comment, our aim has been simple: to slow down the Cameroon SSM juggernaut and create space for proper reasoned debate.

How can we do that? For the past couple of years I’ve been an active member of the Marriage, Sex and Culture group of Anglican Mainstream (AM), the information resource for the global Anglican Communion (here).

In July Policy Exchange, David Cameron’s favourite think-tank (here), published a pro-SSM report What’s In A Name? (here). It is half-baked, superficial, overtly political and, for ‘the UK’s leading think-tank’ (here), well below standard.

In August and on behalf of AM I challenged Policy Exchange to a fringe debate in front of the Tory faithful at the October Conservative party conference. We intended to demonstrate to the grassroots the weakness of the gay marriage argument. Policy Exchange obligingly picked up the gauntlet and, despite on/off twists and turns and ‘lies and duplicity’ – all recorded in detail on Archbishop Cranmer blog (here) and especially (here) – the debate finally took place (‘a result’, according to Cranmer) at Jury’s Inn in Birmingham. You can watch it (here).

(Incidentally there was a revealing moment during a pre-debate planning meeting. Policy Exchange wanted gay marriage to be called ‘equal marriage’ which implies of course that conventional marriage is unequal or unfair. I countered by insisting that conventional marriage should be termed ‘real marriage’ which implies rightly that SSM is fake and false. The atmosphere dropped from friendly to frosty – but they also dropped their demand.)

As part of AM preparations for the debate one of our group, R S Harris, produced a superb and extensive rebuttal of gay marriage, Is There A Case For Same-Sex Marriage?, now available as an e-book (here) or hard copy from TLB Direct, PO Box 3837, Swindon, SN6 9DS. The book is commended by luminaries like the former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern, was edited by Lynda Rose (here) and is the first of its kind – you should get a copy.

It argues from the evidence that:

• The concept of ‘equal marriage’ is fundamentally flawed as it presupposes a questionable notion of ‘equality’ and ignores the essential and defining components of conventional marriage.

• Gay marriage falsely treats parenting roles as interchangeable.

• Same-sex marriage wrongly assumes that the benefits of marriage are automatically transferable to same-sex couples who enter the same institution.

• There is no evidence that same-sex couples will benefit from the ‘commitment device’ invoked by marriage.

• Gay marriage introduces a disturbing, unproven and socially risky new norm into society, that children do not need both a mother and father for optimal development, when all the evidence points the other way.

• Same-sex parenting studies are fundamentally flawed in their sample size and methodology when measured against commonly accepted social science standards.

• If ‘love and commitment’ are the sole criterion for marriage then alarming consequences ensue such as the validation of incestuous relationships, as well as the recognition of polygamous and polyamorous relationships as has already begun in countries with SSM.

• Fear of causing offence makes society tread silently around disturbing medical data from both the UK and the US that, like smoking, homosexual activity is intrinsically unhealthy. For instance unlike vaginal lining, rectal lining is unable to withstand penetrative activity without medical damage. The active promotion of gay lifestyle in schools that SSM marriage inevitably entails is medically harmful for our children, especially boys, and costly to the health service.

I led a small team that laboriously searched the internet for the contact details of 350 chairmen of local Conservative associations up and down the country. Early last week we sent them each a copy of the book to provide them the evidence and to fuel more rebellion in the Tory ranks.

Yesterday the Sunday Telegraph ran an article about the opposition from Tory chairmen and the loss of party members to UKIP which opposes gay marriage. “David Cameron is barking mad,” said one (here).

The knives are out. The Tories are bleeding…

I’ve blogged before about the BPAS abortion centre that opened in Stratford, east London, last year (here) and (here). Now successive vigils by various pro-life groups have provoked a backlash. Fifty pro-abortionists demonstrated outside the centre to condemn what they claim is the “harassment and intimidation of its staff and women seeking advice.” (here).

However their spokeswoman was forced to admit that the pro-life groups have in fact been peaceful, “but we have to be present to stop them getting worse”. So with the evidence against her she flatulently puffed up the story and one-sidedly raised the demo stakes. But she was tilting at windmills.

More regrettable however was the enthusiastic support of three GPs from next-door Tower Hamlets representing that borough’s branch of the British Medical Association and led by one Dr Anna Livingstone. It’s depressing to see society’s salaried life-preservers actively promoting life-destruction. It is a contradiction and an hypocrisy. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath?

The Newham Recorder decided to start a debate about the vigils and the BPAS centre, and asked me to contribute a 300 word article. It was a golden opportunity to highlight locally the heartless commercialism of the abortion companies – sisters to the tobacco companies – and the mass-murder of our unborn children, so I published this piece:

A friend called one of the big two private abortion providers to ask about a termination. The first question they asked was for her post code. The second was for her credit card details. 

The abortion companies weep crocodile tears of sympathy for women in a pregnancy crisis but, like tobacco companies, their real interest is in increasing their cash flow and market share. 

So they offer no proper pre-abortion counselling to their vulnerable but valuable clients as this would take time, cost money and lose them business. And they protest loudly against those who insist that women in crisis should be given the space and support required to make a properly informed choice between the different alternatives available – for her unborn baby, for her family, for herself and for their future together. 

Nationally, London has become the abortion capital of Europe and Britain terminates the equivalent of a full primary school of unborn children every single day. It is far worse than a cull; it is a holocaust. We have wiped out almost the entire population of greater London – over 7 million abortions – in less than fifty years. 

We worry about our aging population yet we kill off our kids. Where is the logic let alone the compassion? 

So I welcome the rise in peaceful vigils – and only peaceful vigils – outside abortion centres like BPAS in Stratford. I have taken part in them there myself. 

Some, like Abort67, silently display pictures of aborted babies’ bloodied body-parts which, like the graphic images of throat cancer on cigarette packets, are intended to show clients and passers-by the shocking human cost of abortion and to urge a different way. 

Others like Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and 40 Days For Life quietly stand at a distance and simply pray against the tragedy of abortion. 

May God answer their prayers soon. 

The equivalent pro-abortion article by Dr Anna Livingstone can be seen in full (here).

It is notable that both articles – from very different perspectives – highlight the wellbeing and interests of the woman, but of course only mine was in a position to promote the welfare of the baby. To pro-abortionists, he or she (the gender of a pre-born is identifiable from 7 weeks) is airbrushed out as an unmentionable unperson of no moral worth, “a cluster of cells… an unnecessary and insentient clump of flesh” (here), and is only there to be terminated by surgical assault from today’s equivalent of Victorian knitting needles and poisons.

I’d hate it if one of the demonstrating doctors had been our family GP when my wife was pregnant with our children. They were never unnecessary clumps of flesh.

(Apologies for the delay on this post. It’s two weeks since the Stonewall ‘Bigot’ award but I’ve been away meeting Christians in Nigeria where Islamists Boko Haram are targeting churches and killing Christians across the northern Sharia states in a devastating campaign of religious cleansing. I also took supplies for children orphaned by the atrocities and Aids. More about this later dv.)

Some good news: For years the word ‘bigot’ has had prime place in the left-liberal lexicon of mindless slurs and primitive insults. But the word is becoming a political boomerang and losing its political power.

Conservative church blogger Archbishop Cranmer identifies the original phenomenon – but it was Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown who started turning the tide.

First, the phenomenon. The Archbishop explains: “It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%)” (here).

Second, the turning of the tide. During the 2010 general election campaign Gordon Brown famously called lifelong Labour supporter Gillian Duffy a ‘bigoted woman’ for raising key issues of immigration and crime (here). Normally of course she would thereby have been damned forever as a xenophobe and Daily Mail reader – but instead the roof fell in on Brown and he was forced into making a humiliating public apology. ‘Bigot’ bites back: Round 1.

Fast forward to early September this year, and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg issued the text of a speech in which he called opponents of gay marriage ‘bigots’ (here). Under a storm of criticism Clegg withdrew the offending word and disgracefully blamed his office minions. ‘Bigot’ bites back: Round 2.

So it was with satisfaction as well as surprise that towards the end of September I received a call from the editor of online magazine The Gay UK (here) informing me that I was one of five nominees for Stonewall’s ‘Bigot of the Year’ award (here). My Church of England Newspaper article Confronting the Gaystapo (here) was the cause of my nomination so I issued the following statement to the magazine and others:

“The Bigot of the Year Award is a vicious name-calling Stonewall annual event that reflects more on the donor than the recipient. By attempting to bully, intimidate, humiliate and spawn hatred of individuals through the Award, Stonewall fully justifies the Gaystapo tag which I gave the organisation and for which apparently I have been nominated. 

“Nonetheless if I win the Award and if Stonewall invite me and permit me without harassment to offer a proper acceptance speech, I plan to attend their Awards dinner and ceremony at the Raphael Gallery on 1st November.” 

Of course faced with high-profile competition from a Cardinal, an Archbishop, a Peer and a Ugandan government minister, I was never going to win.

And Stonewall was never going to allow me to speak at the dinner. It doesn’t do openness, dialogue or indeed justice for those with whom it disagrees.

Meanwhile ‘bigot’ continued to bite back. Round 3 saw Barclays and Coutts threaten to withdraw sponsorship of the Stonewall awards event if the Bigot category continues in next year’s awards (here).

Then, most enlightening of all, Round 4 saw Ruth Davidson MSP, the lesbian leader of the Scottish Tories, criticise the Bigot of the Year award during her speech at the glittering dinner, as a result of which she was booed and jeered off the stage (here) in a surprisingly public display of Stonewall spite and narrow-mindedness. A massive own-goal and ‘bigot’ bites back yet again.

So like the Ouroboros of antiquity, ‘bigot’ is becoming self-devouring and self-defeating. But I‘ve heard Ladbroke is offering odds on Stonewall winning its own award next year…