As I’m not a member of the church, and have no desire to become one – although I’ve never been known to forgo the opportunity to sing praises to the guy-in-the-sky in one of their magnificent buildings – perhaps it’s not my business. Except that this hypocritical organisation has a stake, through seats in the House of Lords, in governing my country. Wouldn’t it be nice, until such time as they are abolished, if they adhered to the laws of the land and basic human rights that permit same-sex marriage (an institution the church tends to be particularly fond of) and physical expression of love? But it seems they’d rather avoid a split from their branches overseas (including those countries in which homophobia is sanctioned by the state) than take the moral stance they’d like to claim is theirs.
In this context, the role of art and literature in counteracting the silencing and marginalisation of homosexual people garners more importance. So I’m proud to have written a novel that has made the Polari First Book Prize shortlist and to include LGBT novels in my reading and reviews. Here are a couple more, which focus particularly on gay men and boys who pay, and are paid, for sex, the first set in a relatively recent Bulgaria and the second in Iceland almost a century ago. I’m hoping the bishop’s love life is more straightforward than those portrayed in these short novels. |