I had to pinch myself on Tuesday as I read the outrageous comments uttered by Father Ray Blake (The Argus, March 2). I have never read such a mishmash of ill-informed views, with the party politics label tagged on to get the necessary headline.

As chair of the LGBT Hate Crime Forum, I can say we are working hard to counter such a blinkered approach, but it just goes to show we have a steep mountain to climb when such ignorant comments are espoused from our supposedly “educated” clergy.

I’ve recently been in correspondence with Keith Sharpe (convener of the “changing attitude” group) who are making great strides in challenging the hostility gay people face in some churches.

Mr Sharpe’s group are working on a dossier to list Sussex churches in various categories from “open and welcoming” to “judgemental and rejecting”. I’m guessing Father Blake’s falls into this latter category.

I for one completely endorse Mr Sharpe’s valuable piece of work. It is just the sort of progressive approach the LGBT community needs.

Moving on to Father Blake’s political comments, well he could not be further from the truth. All parties are making great strides in engaging with the faith communities, and to say their concerns are ignored is simply not true.

As for the “hedonistic gay lobby”, well I’m still looking for this group of people.

Perhaps they are an elusive crowd busy working hard on their “contribution to Western artistic culture and thinking”.

Chris Cooke
Montague Street, Brighton

It should be pointed out to Father Blake that the gay and church communities are not mutually exclusive, but over-lapping, as there are many gay and lesbian members of Brighton churches; as indeed there are across the world.

Governments have a duty to promote and protect human rights and to protect minorities from discrimination and persecution based on ignorance and prejudice, as indeed should any church which claims to follow Jesus’s gospel of love and tolerance.

Happily, many Brighton churches are quite accepting of gay people and free of the judgmental attitudes still surviving in some of the more backward corners of what they like to imagine is/was “Christendom”.

Most Brighton Christians are happy to live in the real world and, generally, our politicians are aware of this.

Rev Dr Brian Twohig
Bloomsbury Street, Brighton

I wonder if Father Blake would explain what he means when he says that faith communities are being overlooked in favour of the city’s “hedonistic gay lobby”?

Every section of any community has the right to make their feelings and aspirations known and it falls to politicians to decide to whom they react and how. Election results will usually determine whether they got it right or not.

It is such a pity Father Blake wants to interfere in politics at all, since he clearly has little grasp of the history of gay emancipation and the years it has taken for gay voices to be heard and taken seriously, despite the contribution gay people make to this and many other communities.

In this day and age Father Blake would not dare to suggest politicians are “pandering” to a black community or a disabled community and I would urge him to behave in a similarly Christian way towards other minority groups.

His faith communities are hardly oppressed, nor are they discriminated against in any meaningful way.

It is not the fault of the gay community if he feels politicians are ignorant of his faith and its waning influence in the 21st century.

James Charles
Pelham Road, Seaford