Social media has been in meltdown in recent days about graffiti allegedly defacing the hallowed walls and pillars of Canterbury Cathedral. The graffiti in the Cathedral has been seen as symptomatic of a range of ills – from the death of the Church of England to the final demise of Western Culture. Some have called for Anglican clergy to be 'strung up' for this blasphemous outrage. JD Vance and Elon Musk piled in, condemning the cathedral graffiti as ugly and disrespectful. If

A friend of mine recently joined a new inclusive Christian network, and wanted to know if I planned to sign up. He used the phrase ‘standing with the LGBTQ+ community’. I hesitated before replying, just as I’d hesitated a decade earlier when asked a similar question at a church in the North of England. The leadership had decided, almost overnight, to affiliate to an inclusive church network, and asked everybody in leadership to sign up. When I hesitated it sparked a tirade fr

In recent years drag has gone mainstream. Actually, it’s bigger than that. Drag has become all-conquering, ubiquitous, the performance art of the moment. The art of cross-dressing for entertainment has a long history, often confined to spaces frequented by consenting adults. By the late 20th century in Britain, drag was drawing an enthusiastic subculture to gay bars such as London’s Vauxhall Tavern, where Lily Savage (aka Paul O’Grady) became a cult figure. O’Grady consciousl