Here is an article from the Toronto Star about the head of a Christian peacekeeper team James Loney who was rescued recently from captivity in Iraq after 4 months. He is gay. Why is okay for some Christians and not others?
Peace activist comes home
Says he's been in a constant state of wonder since his rescue
Activist expected to return to hometown of Sault Ste. Marie
Mar. 27, 2006. 04:40 AM
MICHELLE SHEPHARD AND JESSICA LEEDER
IN TORONTO
James Loney returned to Toronto yesterday humbled by the international attention his captivity garnered and praising all those who helped bring him home from the Palestinian children who carried his picture to protest his kidnapping, to the British soldier who cut the chains that bound him.
"It was a terrifying, profound, powerful, transformative and excruciatingly boring experience. Since my release, my rescue from captivity, I have been in a constant state of wonder, bewilderment, surprise, as I slowly discover the magnitude of the efforts to secure our lives and freedom," Loney said at Pearson International Airport in the first public statement since his release on Thursday.
"I am grateful in a way that can never be adequately expressed in words."
Upon arriving at the airport yesterday afternoon, Loney met privately with his partner, Dan Hunt, and his two brothers and sister-in-law, who had flown from Vancouver to be with him. He later stood before as many as 40 reporters, his brother's hand on his shoulder, as he read from a handwritten statement.
On his shirt was a pin of an Iraqi and Canadian flag intertwined and one from the Mounties likely a souvenir given to him once safe inside the fortified green zone in Baghdad, or during his long journey home.
Loney was the leader of a Christian Peacemaker Team that met in Baghdad last November to help displaced Iraqis and bear witness to the effects of the U.S.-led occupation.
He was kidnapped on Nov. 26 with Canadian Harmeet Sooden, Briton Norman Kember and American Tom Fox in Baghdad. A previously unknown group calling itself Swords of the Righteous Brigade later claimed responsibility.
For the four months the group was held in captivity, a secretive team known as Task Force Black, led by British military and intelligence officers, but including a small contingent of Canadians, looked for clues to their whereabouts.
On Feb. 12, Fox was separated from the others his body was dumped on a Baghdad street earlier this month. He had been shot in the head and chest.
Kember arrived in London on Saturday and immediately faced criticism for what the British media portrayed as an ungrateful attitude toward the troops who rescued him. One tabloid ran the headline: "Norman's grudging thanks."
But Loney was effusive in his thanks yesterday, crediting the "hand of solidarity."
"For the British soldiers who risked their lives to rescue us, for the government of Canada who sent a team to Baghdad to help secure our release, for all those who thought about and prayed for us, for all those who spoke for us when we had no voice, I am forever and truly grateful. It's great to be alive."
He also made note of others who had lost their freedom.
"There are so many people that need this hand of solidarity, right now, today, and I'm thinking specifically of prisoners being held all over the world; people who have disappeared into an abyss of detention without charges, due process, hope for release, some victims of physical and psychological torture, people unknown and forgotten. It is my deepest wish that every forsaken human being should have a hand of solidarity reaching out to them," he told reporters.
The peacemakers' release has sparked a debate worldwide about the role of activists or human rights groups in Baghdad, where kidnappings have blossomed into a lucrative and sometimes politically influential business.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay yesterday warned other Canadians not to follow in dangerous footsteps and risk a trip to Iraq, the Toronto Star's Bruce Campion-Smith reports.
"I understand the motivation. It's compassionate, purely aimed at humanitarian efforts, help and aid and assistance," MacKay said on CTV's Question Period, but he suggested the risk wasn't worth it.
"The way things are in Iraq right now, I would suggest that it would be preferable that Canadians stayed out of Iraq until such time as circumstances stabilize," he said.
Toronto Catholic high school teacher Tom O'Brien feels with so little aid going to Iraqi civilians devastated by the war and few Western eyes to document human rights abuses, the role of these organizations is vital. He believes the CPT members should be praised as heroes.
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`The way things are in Iraq right now, I would suggest that it would be preferable that Canadians stayed out.'
Peter MacKay, foreign affairs minister
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"I know it's a paradox that attention is brought to what they do because they were taken hostage," O'Brien said. "(But) they took a pacifist stance and we need to take that seriously."
O'Brien doesn't know Loney, but came to the airport yesterday to thank him for the work he did in the region and congratulate him on his freedom.
As Loney returned to Toronto, Sooden, a former Montreal resident, met with his father and brother-in-law in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates before boarding another flight to New Zealand where he'll be met by a controversy of his own.
In what's being dubbed "chequebook journalism," New Zealand media are criticizing a deal Sooden's family made with a television station. The state-owned TVNZ broadcaster reportedly paid for his father's and brother-in-law's flight to Dubai in exchange for an agreement that he'd tell his story exclusively to it.
Loney says he'll tell his full story in time. He kept details of his captivity in the notebooks his kidnappers provided. Now, he says, he still needs to understand his freedom.
"For 118 days I disappeared into a black hole and somehow, by God's grace, I was spit out again. My head is swirling and there are times when I can hardly believe it's true," he told reporters.
"We had to wear flak jackets during our helicopter transfer from the international zone to the Baghdad airport and I had to keep knocking on the body armour I was wearing to reassure myself this is all really happening.
"After this I'm going to disappear for a little while into a different kind of abyss, an abyss of love. I need some time to get reacquainted with my partner, Dan, my family, my community and freedom itself," he said.
It was the first time there was mention of Hunt as media outlets had refrained from referring to him during the activist's captivity, out of concern that the kidnappers would harm Loney because of his sexual orientation.
After Loney left the airport he spent time celebrating with friends in Toronto, but is expected soon to return to his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, where his parents and other siblings await his arrival.
In the Sault, at morning mass at Precious Blood Cathedral, where the Loneys are parishioners, Loney was held up yesterday as a "disciple of peace" by Msgr. Bernard Burns, who devoted much of the service to reflecting on the family's ordeal.
"We are so pleased and so happy for the Loney family, who have been freed from the terrible ordeal that they've been going through for the past four months," he said.
Throughout the service Burns implored media to give the Loney family space to "reunite."
"James is not the type of person who talks about what he does. James is the type of person who does what he does. Because of that, I don't think he clearly relishes being in the spotlight," he said. "We pray that he will be given that time, given that space."
Other members of the congregation many of whom do not know Loney personally said they have been moved by the prospect of his homecoming.
"He's a special person. We need more of these people and we need to be thankful that they're there," said Clare Husky. "Even in yourself, you don't know if you could go do something like that," he said. "He's really a great example."
Husky's wife, Sharon, said seeing Loney's father attend mass each morning has made her feel close to the family. "You'd see the poor man here every day and you could see what he was going through," she said.
Amadeo Orlando, 83, said "everybody in the Sault has been praying" for Loney. "It really hit everybody here in the heart."
Loney's parents, Patrick and Claudette, did not attend the 9 a.m. service. Burns said their absence is rare. Instead, they spent the morning with their daughter, Kathleen, and her family.
Loney said yesterday that what everyone seems to want to know is what's the first thing he'll do enjoying his freedom?
"All I really want to do is to love and be loved by the people that I love," he said, but added, "The one specific thing might be to wash a sink full of dirty dishes."
