Hospital prayer room for gravely ill children plastered with LGBT flags

[IwantToRetire]

A hospital prayer room for gravely ill children and their families has been plastered with LGBT flags amid claims that the NHS is being hijacked by transgender ideology.

As part of a new inclusivity drive, a “sanctuary” at Edinburgh’s “Sick Kids” hospital, designed as a quiet space for those suffering trauma and grief, was taken over by symbols representing dozens of sexualities and genders.

The “spiritual care” facility previously described as offering room for “quiet reflection, prayer or meditation” was also rebranded a “chill-out zone” for Pride month, with rainbow-coloured signage directing patients and relatives to it.

The move has outraged some staff and family members of poorly children, with one clinician claiming a leading children’s hospital had been turned into a “social issues battlefield”.

Meanwhile, the family of a terminally ill toddler said they were no longer able to use the room to find comfort in their faith as it had become a “display of activism” which contradicted the teachings of mainstream religions.

The chaplaincy service at the hospital, one of the UK’s leading centres for paediatric care, is run by Maxwell Reay, a transgender man and activist who belongs to a fringe Christian congregation in Edinburgh.

Mr Reay, who has described being trans as a “gift from God”, is facing claims that he has breached rules which state hospital chaplains should not seek to impose their own beliefs when offering spiritual care.

Extracts from a Telegraph article reprinted in full by yahoo news https://uk.style.yahoo.com/hospital-prayer-room-gravely-ill-165852417.html

Scotland sure looks like it is trying to out pride everyone else!

I think any room that's being used as a tranquil, peaceful, reflection space needs to be sensitively decorated in calming, neutral colours with dim lights. Nothing that could cause sensory overload to distraught families of gravely I'll toddlers & children. This is downright disrespectful & condescending.

That chaplain is shit at his job frankly. Do they put up shitty decorations for other celebrations? If they do they need to stop that too.

Who at the depths of their worst possible moment is going to give a shiny shit about pride, christmas, a coronation, earth day or anything else? Their focus is their loved one - in this case children. if pride is relevant to that persons life they will already be well aware of it and that will be part of their reflections accordingly.

Why not stick a fucking drag queen story time in there too? This really makes me angry. Live and let live, but this is just outrageous.

It appears that they are conducting a survey for their LGBT Charter its quiet short with a couple of free text boxes, might be worth while expressing feelings about this there !

https://children.nhslothian.scot/about-us/

Shame they can't turn it into a pride room and open another chaple souly as a chaple. Bonkers solution but maybe this is the only answer.

You can sexualise anything today. Even death.

Don’t give them ideas
I am so sorry your child is dying but here’s a bloke in stripper shoes and a wig to make it all better

DQST is probably on the cards already, nothing surprises me anymore.

Something that this chaplain hasn't considered - or, more likely, doesn't care about - is that people make weird associations at these times of heightened emotional stress. I can't listen to 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' by Bobby McFerrin because it instantly takes me back to the telephone call I received telling me my much-loved gran had died, as it was playing in the background.

Does this person really want parents potentially having a visceral, negative response to Pride rainbows and trans flags in the future, because a glimpse of one - and let's be honest, they're fucking everywhere - puts them straight back in that room at the hospital, digesting the news that their little one might not/isn't going to make it?

Hospital prayer rooms are meant to be multi-faith suitable. A calm, reflective space for someone to pause and meditate/pray at a time of need.

As an atheist I've found them to be a much needed sanctuary in a place filled with the smells and sounds of people fighting for their life without overt iconography.

Activism of any kind is neither welcome nor warranted in these spaces and any hospital chaplain worthy of their salary knows this and champions the rooms as a sanctuary for anyone that needs them. This hospital and chaplain are completely out of order.

If they want a pride specific chill space then get one of the many rainbow organisations to pay for one to be created - I have no issue with that. But don't intrude on a calm sanctuary for grieving and worried parents/family/friends.

Oh, god, “chill out zone” for parents rent apart by anguish and grief? How brutally insensitive.

‘Sick children are all very well, but how can we make this more about me?’

Even if you're pro-LGBT, at some point you have to recognise that not everything in life comes down to sexuality and gender. Children dying being a good case of something that doesn't!

It is the neutralness of these areas that are so important for the use of that room. Neutral and calm tones, a peaceful place to be.

This is a political act that removes that neutrality where it is desperately needed.

This is sickening. Someone should grow a pair and take those flags down. I remember how stark white the hospital was when my daughter was dying, I'm glad I don't remember much else to be honest. The bereavement suite was very neutral as it should be. I'd have found this highly inappropriate and it would have made me uncomfortable. Pushing pride at one of the worst times in a parents lives is a new low.

Who gives a flying shit about who someone wants to bone/what some man wants to cosplay as when their poor child is gravely ill in a room supposed to be a quiet place to take a breather? For fucks sake, this is so deeply innappropriate.

so very sorry for your loss

mnmnddddd · Today 05:23

The small string of flags pictured in the full article really weren't that offensive. The flags in the window did seem quite in-your-face.

And the wall sized one, behind Reay. The point is that it's supposed to be a neutral place of reflection, for people who want to pray, meditate, or just have a bit of quiet time. They are not supposed to contain overt religious symbology and certainly not political rubbish.

Mr Reay not reading the room, literally.
Narcissism on steroids.

WHY can we not just live in a world where who you fuck or want to fuck and what you wear is not relevant to anyone outside your own private life. I don't care. And I would care even less if I was going through a terrible trauma. And WHO wants to contemplate anything to do with other people's sexuality when their child is severely ill? I have rarely seen anything so offensive.

Or some woman, as is the case here.

If this is not proof that Pride has gone too far, I don't know what is.

It's also proof that there are much much more important things to talk about than Pride.

Why don't organisations get behind a children's month, and campaign for equal opportunities, research for childhood diseases, education, care for sick children and their families?

Absolutely

Is there no low to which these activists won’t sink?

I wonder if this individual was nurtured in the same extremist training ground as James Morton? Edinburgh isn’t the biggest city.

This ideological coercive behaviour, picking on the most vulnerable people, with the least ability to fight back - women who have been sexually attacked approaching support services, women in prison with very few normal rights, children in school too young to understand the impropriety, disabled women requiring intimate care - and now this - parents and children facing the worst ordeal seeking comfort.

Its beyond twisted and sick.

I am so angry that the followers of this ideology have ripped up the rule of political activism in a democratic society (what happened to writing to your MP, waving placards, forming pressure groups and a bit of civil disobedience?) and are using, way outside their remit, every power they are entrusted within their employment or voluntary work, to coerce others into following it too, whether or not those others believe it or wish to.

Hear hear.

This is an interesting metaphor for the aspects of this ideology that rankles me the most. It’s like the first god is always the LGBTQ+ god. Then in his (they/she/ze) case it’s me, myself and I. Then I assume actual god and Jesus and the holy saint. Then way way way down the list is actually doing your job and caring about the distressed families you’re paid to support.

It’s just tiers and tiers of narcissism from what I can see.