Our road, in the general direction of Damascus

I have to say, my partner was always sceptical. He experienced, first hand, the sheer awfulness of the church as a gay teenager. He says he will forever be scarred by it and he can never again go under the banner of Christian.

When we adopted our first child, a debate arose between us and our Muslim social worker, about what religion we intended bringing up our children in. Our initial instinct was to say none – and she would not have minded – she made that quite clear. But it was I who blinked.

I suggested to Leon, and he agreed, that faith, of whatever kind, is an important human thing to experience. It matters not if it gets rejected – that is irrelevant. But you can’t teach a child faith. You have to experience it, contradictions and all, for yourself.

A friend of mine told us at the time about her experience of bringing up her children athiests. She said it seemed fine for a while, but she had noticed their loneliness when things went bad, or wrong. They seemed to have no one to turn to, not even an imaginary friend. How lonely indeed.

So, we found a church. It had splendid music and some sense of liturgy and decorum. We were welcomed there and no-one seemed to make any fuss. Whatever stir one middle aged white man, a younger man and two black babies caused, was well managed. And the children would have been none the wiser.

Spurred on by baptism and early communion our boys have therefore, for several years now, attended church. I have been the one to take them, mostly. Leon would come with us on the odd occasion, and then would attend to the needs of his Blackberry during the service. Our eldest son Gabriel became a server while Joshua went through the motions in a good-spirited sort of way, but would much rather have been playing some computer game.

That was how it was for years. The church we attended in Cape Town was spikey, with lots of prancing around and doffing of birettas and a congregation whose attention was focussed forwards in the direction of the choir and the altar, rather than communal - so that suited me perfectly. Sermons were short, incidental and easily ignored. The music was good. The language was the austere beauty of the King James, which could either serve a comedic purpose or else lull one into a sense of quiet comfort.

Then came the attack. I happened to be looking for the address of one of the Bishops on the internet, when I came across an article in a blog relating to a priest, who has, for other reasons, been relieved of his licence to operate as a priest. In it, my name was mentioned, together with a list of statements about me, which amounted to an extraordinary and vicious attack. I knew I had to take action immediately.

I withdrew Gabriel from the server's guild and indicated to the parish priest the nature of the attack and the fact that we would not be returning to the church unless we could be afforded some measure of protection from this man. Silence was the response.

I approached the Bishops and the Archbishop, asking the latter for an interview. Again, silence was the response and no interview was granted. Instead, the Archbishop suggested through his Provincial Officer that I be urged to "pray" for the perpetrator of the attack. In general, bar one or two notable exceptions, silence has been the response of the parish priest and parish as well.

Now, I venture to suggest, had this attack been a racial attack, or a xenophobic attack, or even an attack against a woman - the response would have been markedly different. It would have been immediate and it would have come from the highest levels of the church. But in this instance, clear sustained homophobia, there has been silence, except for a short statement given out by the office of the archbishop, which in the end I offered to help draft.

The clear and distinct impression we have been given, as a family, is that we are not wanted. This despite mouthings to the contrary elsewhere. Homosexual people are supposedly welcome - (but more singly, than in pairs, it seems). Homosexual priests are not welcome - that is very clear indeed - (again, despite mouthings to the contrary). And homosexual priests with a heathen partner and two adopted children seem to deserve no protection from homophobic attacks by another priest - within the ranks of the church - and who is quite obviously in need of psychological care.

I withdrew immediately from the church, and as I had guessed, this priest came looking for me on Sunday mornings at Mass. Had I and my children been there, there would have been, I am quite sure, no protection from him. It was not a risk I was willing to take and certainly not one I was willing to expose my children to.

At the start of this whole situation, Leon had asked a fundamental question. He asked "What kind of an institution is this, that we are exposing our children to?" And I had to admit, it was not a safe one for them, or us. Now, it is doubtless true that they will be exposed to a whole range of issues and problems throughout their lives. They will doubtless encounter homophobia in their schools, on the sports fields, etcetera etcetera. But that does not mean that we should be actually seeking out places for them to be abused? The church is clearly one such place. It is not a safe place for them, or for us. But more than this, the church is an environment where gay and lesbian people are second-class citizens and that is intolerable.

From the perspective of faith, well, that is something one must mould for oneself in any case. And my life is not, and never has been one which depends on a faith in God for its goodness. I have not quite worked out how we will be explaining to the children why we don't go to church anymore - but I guess the truth won't hurt them. I might just say this to them - that the church just wasn't a safe place for us. We can do much better elsewhere.

The Bottomless pit

Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon

So, I have just had the most wonderful holiday. This makes a change in itself – because usually, I find holidays deeply stressful. Lying on the beach has never presented itself to me as something a sane person would want to do. You either get burnt to a cinder – or the wind blows the sand-dunes into your eyes – or both at the same time.

Similarly, staying in a hotel makes me long for home. I get irritated with the service, the room the lift, the other holiday-makers. I get irritated with being irritated quite soon and make everyone around me miserable. So it is better, I have found, not to go on holiday.

Well, you can imagine, I went, this time, with a tremendous sense of resignation and it did not take very long for me to confirm my worst fears. The 12 hour flight was hell on wings. A baby some four rows from where we were seated, screamed and howled at intervals, throughout the entire night. No amount of volume on the headphones on my part, and seemingly, no amount of attention from its parents would help the matter. She simply screamed on, and on and on. The wailing continued in the immigration queue. She was relentless and determined.

But the holiday, I am very pleased to say, turned out to be a challenge to my many preconceptions. We stayed with friends in the tiny village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Devon. I use the word “village” somewhat judiciously, because it is a village with what cannot be more than fifty people living in it. The Old Rectory, where our friend lives, is precisely that. It is a gracious building, with an Aga in the kitchen which never goes off, spacious rooms looking on to a perfect English garden, with ponds and a steam running through it. The landscape is a tapestry of greens and yellows. It is achingly beautiful countryside.

There are scores of wild ponies on the Moor. Our boys fished with nets in the streams and rivers, chased the sheep in the pasture and caught crabs off the pier, in nearby Teignmouth. We were asked to come to talk to a class in a school in another nearby tiny village, called Berry Pomeroy. We had apparently been advertised to the class we were going to address as a “family from Africa” - which is, of course, not incorrect. The thought did cross my mind through, that the class may well end up with a slightly strange idea of what families in Africa looked like, when they met our two black children with their two white dads. But no-one mentioned it on the day, so neither did we!

After our idyllic stay in Devon, we did some of the tourism necessities in London, before returning home. And it was on our return that my partner, Leon, made an observation which seems to me to be so astute, that I would love it to have been mine. He said that what he noticed most about returning to South Africa is that “everyone is so angry”.

Now there is a thing. And I think he is right. Listen to the political debate going on. Read the newspapers. Drive in the traffic. Shop in the Mall. And you will see this thing – it is anger. It is seldom directed at anyone in particular. It is written on the faces of people. It is etched on their foreheads. And it is caused by a truckload of factors. It is caused by our history – of separation, of hatred, of suspicion, of exploitation. It is caused by opportunities, or lack of them. It is caused by crime and recession. It is caused by lack of respect and lack of hope. It is caused by the way we have learned to treat people, whether because of colour, or because of nationality, or because of gender, or because of age.

Anger has been somehow scorched onto our national soul. It is as much part of our identity as is Nelson Mandela or boerewors. And it is a really debilitating thing, because it becomes the way we act, the way we speak, the way we think, the way we behave towards each other on a daily basis.

And the really sinister thing about it is that it has seemingly become normal for us to be angry. That is just the way we are. The question I have to ask – and I ask this of myself – is this: Will we forever remain that way? And what is the damage we are doing, to ourselves and to our children? Because while it remains within us and amongst is, our peace is paper-thin. And what the consequences will be, we can only guess at.

"Annabel" by Kathleen Winter

Annabel is a novel about intersexuality – basically that. The child of Jacinta, a rather strange mindless woman with flashes of genius and Treadway – a trapper of very few words but impeccable principles, is born intersex. The parents decide that the child will grow up male and surgery is performed in order to enable this – by and large.

But Wayne, the child (and the parents) always know that there is something different about him – and the novel explores the psychological journey which he takes to eventually ditching his pills and allowing his bodiliness to have its way.

It is dull. It is tedious and it is dreary. For a book which was listed for the Orange prize, all I can say is YAWN! Everything about it is completely obvious. The mother nurtures things in her heart, but can’t talk to anyone about them. She cooks a lot and remembers what it was like to live in a slightly more habitable place that the Labrador coast. The father is a mono-dimentional. He traps. He likes the outdoors. He doesn’t say much. He eats caribou. He talks to birds.

The son is so passive about everything that one just loses interest. And everything which happens to him – down to the violent abuse he receives from workmates when he finally goes to the city – is completely expected. The only thing which is not expected, is that he can be so bloody boring in the living of his life!

And yes, I get it – the Labrador coast is inhospitable – and that is what it is like when you are intersex. Page, after page, after page of inhospitability. I really did get it! I got it quite early on and had to endure it for the rest of the book. (Gosh – maybe that was the point! But please – enough!)

Don’t read this book. It is a monumental waste of time! Don’t read it if you are in any way interested in intersexuality – it will teach you nothing at all. Don’t read this book. It is just too tedious for words.