Prayer for The Jam Factory

"Government will [not] posthumously pardon thousands of men convicted for the crime of being born gay. "

Father Ian McKenzie, Parish of West Imercia:

Oh Lords, our merciful Government, with your hostility towards all things bright and beautiful, your fear of all people great and small; with your power to deflect blame for your own failings upon your innocent flock, we thank thee for this bountiful gift, so bountiful it hath taken thee 6 decades to instigate.

We thank thee Lords for thy mercy, for the possibility of forgiving people long after they are able to benefit from your forgiveness.

We thank thee for the gift of no longer forcing courageous people to take drugs they don't need, and for no longer imprisoning them based on the gender of the people they find attractive. 

We thank thee for the gift of new and easier targets for our fears and prejudice to flourish (for truly, you just can't tell by looking at them, can you?). And we thank thee Lords for smiting the sick and the poor. 

Lords, in your wisdom, you have banished the blight of the foreign worker. For how can any man or woman receive the gift of labour, just because they are willing and able to work? 

We thank thee, oh Lords. For just as Jesus banished the money lenders from the temple, you have banished the sick, the poor and the needy form our hospitals. For how can any man, woman or child receive that which they have not paid for, directly, in cash? 

We thank thee Lords, for drawing us up into the light of your prejudice. For the blessing of thy persecutions upon people with disabilities and long term care. 

We thank thee Lords, for banishing the homeless and vulnerable from our streets. 

We surrender unto thee our personal freedoms. Cleanse us of our impure thoughts. Watch over your flock, going over our phone records and internet browser histories. Cleanse us of our imagination, our hopes, our dreams. 

Give us this day our daily white bread, feed our fears and nurture our prejudices as we celebrate our ignorance and confusion. And give us our mounting debts as they accumulate mounting interest against us. 

For thine is the Kingdom, the power, the riches and the glory. Forever and ever, Amen (or to put Amen in its English translation: 'let it be kept secret.')