A Church of England college apologises for using gay slang during a service for LGBT history month

A Church of England college has apologised for hosting a service to commemorate the start of LGBT history month this February.

During the service, ministers used gay slang known as Polari which was previously used in the 1960s as of way for gay men to interact without attracting police attention.

The Westcott House college in Cambridge, which trains priests for the Church of England, held the service on Tuesday (January 31) which was advertised as a “Polari evening prayer in anticipation of LGBT history month.”

According to the BBC, the college chaplain had not seen the wording of the service prior to the event.

Instead of the traditional “Glory to be the father, and to the son, and the Holy Spirit” the prayer at the service was, “Fabeness be to the Auntie, and to the Homie Chavvie, and to the Fantabulosa Fairy.”

Reverend Canon Chris Chivers, the principal at the college, called the service “hugely regrettable.”

“I fully recognise that the contents of this service are at variance with the doctrine and teaching of the Church of England and that is hugely regrettable.”

Chivers adds that the service used “a form of liturgy which was not an authorised act of worship in line with the college’s procedures.”

The college have now promised to ensure that organisers would be “tightening the internal mechanisms of the house to ensure this never happens again.”

The college hoped “to make a creative contribution to setting a different tone for the debate on human sexuality in the church. But this was not it.”

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