A Sydney Anglican minister once wrote to High Court judge Justice Michael Kirby (pictured) urging him to join an "ex-gay" ministry or face the wrath of God.
In a series of letters to the prominent jurist, the rector of St Stephen's Church in Belleview Hill, Rev Richard Lane, urged Kirby to "cast yourself on the mercy of Jesus … admit your sin, confess your wrongdoing and turn in humble repentance to the Lord Jesus, who alone can forgive you".
The letters came to light on Tuesday at a Sydney forum on religious tolerance and homosexuality at which Kirby was a guest speaker.
Lane concluded his first letter with a referral to controversial "ex-gay" ministry Liberty.
"I am aware that the very step of repentance would likely involve an enormous change of lifestyle and that help may be needed,” Lane wrote.
“In that respect, I draw your attention to a recent article about God's healing of homosexuality and the work of Liberty Christian Ministries Inc which can be found on the Sydney Anglican website.”
According to Liberty's website, the ministry provides "support, hope and education to Christian men and women who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction".
Such ministries have been condemned by numerous psychological and medical organisations, including the American Psychiatric Association, which has stated that "there is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed," and that they "create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish."
Lane wrote that for Kirby to call himself a Christian Anglican was a "perversion of truth" and to continue to do so without changing his lifestyle would brand him, like Herod, a "coward, a liar, a deceiver" and a "lawless one".
In response, Kirby accused the churchman of using intemperate language, ignoring modern discoveries about sexual orientation and missing the "central loving message of Jesus and the Gospels".
"There is not a single word of Jesus that sustains the thesis of animosity in your letter,” Kirby stated.
“It reads like the writings of many lawyers I know who fix on isolated texts, which they misunderstand, and ignore the whole point conveyed by the context and purpose of the document.
"It is self-evidently absurd to suggest that [gay] people are evil wrong-doers. That would truly be a presumption to attribute such an error of genetics/hormones to God. This realisation obliges us, in the current age, to re-read the scriptural texts (often metaphors for mysterious truths) with fresh eyes granted to us by contemporary science.”
Though Lane's second letter took a lighter tone, Kirby declined to match it.
"I ask you to excuse me that I cannot share the mood of frivolity evident in your second letter," Kirby wrote.
"I have known too many homosexual people who have been subjected to violence, rejection by their families and suffered self-loathing because of the kind of religious opinion expressed in your letters.
"May the grace of Jesus be with us both," he concluded.
The letters were released after both Lane and Kirby agreed they be circulated to clergy.
Lane's initial letter came in response to Kirby's comments on ABC Radio last year about his continued involvement in the Anglican Church.
Kirby told ABC's Monica Attard: "I am a Christian Angican who's been brought up in that tradition, comfortable with it, believing in a loving religion and believing in the message that Jesus brought to love one another and to be reconciled with one another. And that is a very comfortable religion for me and therefore is still important for me."
Iain Clacher
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