Derrick Sherwin Bailey
Derrick Sherwin Bailey | |
---|---|
Born | Alcester, England | 30 June 1910
Died | 9 February 1984 | (aged 73)
Alma mater | Alcester Grammar School |
Derrick Sherwin Bailey (30 June 1910 – 9 February 1984) was an
Early life
Bailey was born at Moors, Alcester, Warwickshire, to William Thomas Bailey, a railway signalman- which influenced his son's interest in the railways- and his wife Ellen Mary (née Taylor).[1][2][3][4] He was educated at Alcester Grammar School, then Lincoln Theological College. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1943- and the University of Edinburgh (Ph.D. 1947).[5][6]
Career
Recognised as the church's leading expert on sexual ethics,[7]
- "Under the guidance of the Rev. Dr. Derrick Sherwin Bailey (1910-84), a group of clergy, doctors and lawyers studied the existing materials on homosexuality. They then produced a privately printed pamphlet titled The Problem of Homosexuality. This interim report, written by Bailey, signalled the first twentieth-century extended treatment of homosexuality by an ecclesiastical body. Not only did it examine the current medical, psychological, and sociological literature, but it also sought to address the role of the Church of England in the issue of reforming the law. The Moral Welfare Council recognized the role of the State in regulating society, but it also acknowledged that the rights of the homosexual were being violated, and this issue needed to be addressed.
- "Bailey's writings helped the Church of England to respond to the theological issue of homosexuality, to homosexuals themselves, as well as to the laws of England. This 1954-5 period in the Moral Welfare Council provided important conceptual guidelines for subsequent discussions about homosexuality, not only in the Church of England but throughout Christendom."[8]
While working on the pamphlet, Bailey independently completed .
Bailey testified to the Wolfenden Committee in support of the reform of the laws on homosexuality. The historian Patrick Higgins describes some of Bailey's other views an "interesting cocktail of beliefs". Higgins lists Bailey as believing that homosexuality will eventually disappear "because he thought that modern people would create better marriages, which in turn would make better homes, producing children who would naturally follow the right sexual path". He also proposed that homosexual men should be invited into the homes of married heterosexuals in order so that the heterosexuals could "share some of their joy with them". While he believes male homosexuality to be pitied rather than criminalised, Higgins reports that he had little sympathy with lesbians: he considered lesbianism "socially more undesirable than male homosexuality".[10]
Between 1951 and 1955, he was Central Lecturer to the Church of England Moral Welfare Council.[11]
In 1962 Bailey became a
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-861411-1. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Contemporary Authors: vols 5-8, Gale Research Co., 1969, p. 55
- ^ "What is marriage?". 27 September 2012.
- ^ "Private lives made public".
- ISBN 978-0-19-861411-1. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions, ed. Dana Mack and David Blankenhorn, William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 2001, p. 181
- ^ "Private lives made public".
- ^ Carey, Jonathan Sinclair. "D.S. Bailey and 'the Name Forbidden among Christians.'". Anglican Theological Review. The report compiled by Bailey for the Church of England's Moral Welfare Council to present to the Wolfenden Committee was actually entitled Sexual Offenders and Social Punishment.
- )
- OL 19645005M.
- ^ The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions, ed. Dana Mack and David Blankenhorn, William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 2001, p. 181
- ^ The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions, ed. Dana Mack and David Blankenhorn, William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 2001, p. 181
- required.)
Bibliography
- Dynes, Wayne; Donaldson, Stephen, eds. (1992). Studies in Homosexuality, Vol XII: Homosexuality and Religion and Philosophy. New York; London: Garland. pp. 152–173.
- Dynes, Wayne R., ed. (1990). "Bailey, Derrick Sherwin". Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. New York; London: Garland. pp. 103–4. Archived from the original on 22 February 2006.