Poet Laureate declares ‘God is Gay’ in tribute to Orlando victims
Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has declared that “our children are gay and God is gay” – in a poem released in the wake of the Orlando massacre.
Duffy was appointed as Britain’s Poet Laureate in 2009, and is the first ever openly LGB person to hold the esteemed traditional role.
The Poet Laureate is expected to write verse for significant national occasions, and Duffy released a poem last week in the wake of vigils across the UK for the Orlando massacre.
The poem, titled Gay Love, declares: This writer is gay,/and the priest, in the old love of his church,/kneeling to pray.
“The farmer is gay, baling the gold hay/out in the fields,/and the teacher, cycling to school each day.
“The politician is gay,/though he fears to say,/knotting his tongue, his tie.”
The poem continues to list people who are gay, including “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker”, before concluding: “Our children, are gay/And God is gay”.
Despite angering some evangelicals, the poem was praised by the Bishop of Buckingham, Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson.
He told Christian Today: “The last line is shocking. It is meant to be shocking. But shock is something we live with in Christian communities.
“I think you can see that the language of what she is saying is very similar to some of the more shocking things that Saint Paul says about God.
“I am sure there were Pharisees in Galatia who were very upset by what St Paul was saying because it went beyond what they knew of God.”
Among teachings in Galatians 3, St Paul declares: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Jesus”.
The Bishop added: “This is what is called ‘queer theology’. It is not about being gay. It is about questioning and querying what we thought we could rely on in our religious traditions.”
