Homophobic Stickers Merit a Slap on the Wrist
Mohammed Hasnath posted a whole bunch of these stickers around the East End of London (where I work):
“Basically, some people just handed them to me so I just put them up. I didn’t say anything, it doesn’t say that I am going to punish them it just says what God says in the Koran.
“I wasn’t the one who made them, some people gave them to me and I only put up a few, there were hundreds of them up. I didn’t know the police were going to get involved or that it was a offence or anything.”
And in response he was given a slap on the wrist:
Hasnath, who lives with his family in Tower Hamlets and survives on job seekers allowance, was fined £100, ordered to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge. The offence could not carry a custodial sentence.
District Judge Coleman said: “I think you used these stickers deliberately to offend and distress people, you certainly succeeded in doing that.
“You have upset people and they deserve an apology, you are not entitled to behave in this way.”
An apology? £100? Inciting homophobic hatred in the community is worthy of a trivial fine and a demand for an apology? This asshole should be in jail! What if that sticker had said ‘Muslim free zone’? ‘Jew free zone’? I can’t believe that a message of outright hatred, with the clear implicit threat of violence, wouldn’t merit a custodial sentence. Turns out it could have – last month the CPS said:
“This case has now been referred to the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division to consider whether a section 29C (1) of Public Order Act 1986 offence should be added. This offence is committed if a person uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, if they intend thereby to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.”
So they decided not to bother even trying to jail him for up to six months, sending out a message that there are no meaningful consequences to anti-gay extremism like this. Others have pointed it out for many other reasons recently, but it’s clear that there’s something really rotten at the heart of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Go On. Jail 30K Twitter Users.
I know who the Premiership footballer is. Chances are you do too. But he wants to do everything in his power to stop you knowing (and revealing further) that he had an affair. What a douchebag. I’m not going to reveal his identity here – I don’t care about him enough, but 5 seconds on Twitter should be enough for anyone. For that matter why not check out a whole load of front pages of national newspapers this morning before he tries to get you too, on his arrogant crusade:
A Scottish newspaper became the first mainstream British publication to identify the Premier League footballer who is attempting to prevent discussion on Twitter about his affair with the former Big Brother star Imogen Thomas. Meanwhile it was reported that a High Court judge had referred an unidentified journalist to the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, to consider a criminal prosecution for breaching a privacy injunction with a tweet about another footballer.
The move could potentially mean that criminal proceedings would be brought against 30,000 people who have broken one or other of the contested injunctions by tweeting in recent days the identities of those involved.
Good luck with that. Even libel lawfirm Carter Ruck knew they didn’t have a leg to stand on once the superinjunction protecting Trafigura from revelations they’d dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast had been breached by tens of thousands of users on Twitter. Stopping that information was just impossible – force Twitter to filter information before it can be posted and find a competitor popping up with no such scruples; punish identifiable users and find countless more unidentifiable users publishing the protected information again and again. If this footballer had a brain he’d stop repeatedly destroying his own reputation.
It’s OK to be Takei
Britain abandoned Section 28, but the legislature in the American state of Tennessee has now passed a similar piece of anti-gay nonsense, which would prohibit teachers in elementary and middle schools from talking about homosexuality at all. It blows my mind that anyone ever thought that the discussion of same-sex attraction could make someone gay, but it shocks me even more that an American state should try to enshrine such moronic prejudice into law now.
Out gay former Star Trek actor George Takei has something to say about this development. Love George, who didn’t even remark on the irony of the bill being sponsored by Sen. Stacey Campfield. Americans, eh?
Commissioner Defends Met Repression
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said of his force’s policing operations in advance of the Royal Wedding:
He fiercely defends having made pre-emptive arrests of suspected troublemakers before the wedding. “Things were put in place to try to prevent trouble on the day and arrests were made. But you also saw British cops at their best.”
He was particularly proud of the way his men engaged with the public and got them on side so that when difficult crowd manoeuvres had to be performed, they were compliant. As he passed one knot of spectators they were chanting: “We love Gary”, Sir Paul recalls. “Who’s Gary?” he asked. The policeman replied sheepishly: “It’s me, guv.”
So the question is, given what his thugs actually did, was he actually defending it or were these genuinely rogue operations, not sanctioned by him? It brings up an eerie recollection of the inquest into Jean Charles de Menezes’ death – noone told the cops who incompetently followed him, or those who ultimately murdered him to do so, but a certain environment was set up and sanctioned by the top which allowed it to happen. Is this what allowed the pre-wedding abuses to take place so freely? Let me remind you what they actually were:
There was this appalling ‘snatch and grab’ of people peacefully singing in Soho Square (via Liberal Conspiracy):
And what of the mind boggling arrest of Charlie Veitch for pre-crime (this video will shock you):
I’ve blogged about ‘Love Police’ Charlie before. To see him arrested for ‘conspiring to’ (read: thinking privately to himself about) potentially upset a royal supporter or two makes much of the police’s antics under New Labour look tame. Is this British policing at its best? The outcome here:
Charlie was collected by the Metropolitan Police from Parkside and taken to an undisclosed police station in London for 8 hours. Efforts by his lawyer, family, and partner to locate him were made in vain – he had effectively been ‘disappeared’ into the police system. Charlie was denied his right to a phone call from London, again continuing the obstruction of his access to his lawyer, family, partner and supporters. He requested that the police telephone his partner to inform her of his whereabouts, which was promised but not performed. With his family in the dark as to his whereabouts, concern was considerably growing.
Charlie was eventually released on bail 23 hours and 45 minutes after his arrest at approximately 1600h on Friday 29th April from Edmonton Police Station, London – just within the 24 hour limit that a person can be lawfully arrested and detained without charge.
Entirely political policing, which, as Veitch himself noted in the video is what we’d expect of China, of Bahrain, of Syria even. Since when did we start arresting people at home because they might do something politically (and peacefully) which we disagree with? You might ask that of Chris Knight:
Knight similarly hadn’t done anything, but the Met decided that he should be pre-emptively arrested essentially for conspiring to use his freedom of speech. A mock execution of an effigy of Prince Andrew away from the wedding procession might have caused offence, but since when was that an arrestable offence, especially considering it hadn’t happened yet? Is that British policing at its best? I’ve blogged about Knight too – suspended from his job in advance of the G20 protests merely for publicly stating what he thought the consequences might be on the day of the Met’s inflammatory rhetoric. British policing also swooped on his planned event in Soho Square (seen in this video):
And what about these arrests at Charing Cross? Of course there were many other outrageous acts of blatantly political policing (links available via the Liberal Conspiracy site earlier in this article).
Sir Paul may express his pride in this British policing, but he notably doesn’t mention TSG thug Simon Harwood, nor of his colleagues who enabled him to attack Ian Tomlinson and who then shielded him from accountability. I would argue the opposite to the Commissioner – his force, more than ever, is a tool to enforce the status quo through violence and political repression. That can’t reasonably be any cause for anyone to feel pride.
Screw the Vatican!
The Vatican appears to have joined in the clamour of religious zealots to claim ‘persecution’ for being ever increasingly prevented (at least in the developed world) from discriminating against gay people. Given their history of covering up paedophilia in their own ranks, it’s perhaps no surprise that they feel that an offence is a good defence, but this really takes the cake. From Archbishop Silvio Tomasi, Catholicism’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations to the Human Rights Council of all places:
for the purposes of human rights law, there is a critical difference between feelings and thoughts, on the one hand, and behaviour, on the other. A state should never punish a person, or deprive a person of the enjoyment of any human right, based just on the person’s feelings and thoughts, including sexual thoughts and feelings. But states can, and must, regulate behaviours, including various sexual behaviours. Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviours must be forbidden by law. Paedophilia and incest are two examples.
And how predictable of the bastard to lump paedophilia, incest and homosexuality (by implication) together. Just how should homosexuality be regulated, more to the point why should it be regulated, when national medical and psychological bodies in every country in the developed world agree homosexuality is inherent and not harmful? It’s one of many reminders that the Vatican, this accident of history, remains bound to religious ‘law’ and isn’t playing on the same civil law playing field as the rest of those of us in the 21st century.
But he goes on:
the Holy See wishes to affirm its deeply held belief that human sexuality is a gift that is genuinely expressed in the complete and lifelong mutual devotion of a man and a woman in marriage. Human sexuality, like any voluntary activity, possesses a moral dimension : it is an activity which puts the individual will at the service of a finality; it is not an “identity”. In other words, it comes from the action and not from the being, even though some tendencies or “sexual orientations” may have deep roots in the personality. Denying the moral dimension of sexuality leads to denying the freedom of the person in this matter, and undermines ultimately his/her ontological dignity. This belief about human nature is also shared by many other faith communities, and by other persons of conscience.
Who gives a toss what this moron believes? Does he actually appreciate he’s addressing a human rights council? Does he not appreciate his audience actually knows sexual orientation is inherent? He can philosophise his bigotry all he likes – it doesn’t make him right and it certainly doesn’t give him the right to try to suggest that human rights law shouldn’t cover sexual orientation. Then again this is the Catholic Church, and they have tried every trick in the book to keep themselves from being held to account for their genuine crimes, and Tomasi predictably continues by claiming persecution against Catholics:
People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex. When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature, which may also be expressions of religious convictions, or state opinions about scientific claims, they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.
Expressing a viewpoint doesn’t get anyone prosecuted. What gets people prosecuted is discrimination, which under European law is illegal in the provision of goods and services. The theist line is so damned tedious. As I’ve pointed out time and time again in this blog, in this era of conflicting rights claims and legislation, religion’s rights to discriminate lose out every time, now that almost all western government have concluded that protection of gay people from any discrimination is more important. This, whatever Tomasi would like you to believe, is not an attack on religion itself. It’s time to start ignoring the hate persistently spewed by the Vatican; it’s entirely out of step with the modern world.
For God’s Sake!
Blasphemy laws by the back door? You decide. From the British Humanist Association:
Three posters planned for display at railway stations as part of The Census Campaign have been refused by companies owning the advertising space, who viewed them as too likely to cause offence.
Two reasons were given by owners of the space: they were concerned that the use of the phrase ‘for God’s sake’ would cause widespread and serious offence and they also did not wish to take adverts relating to religion.
The BHA has reacted with astonishment that an everyday phrase should be deemed too contentious for public display.
‘It is a little tongue-in-cheek,’ BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson commented, ‘but in the same way that saying “bless you” has no religious implication for many, “for God’s sake” is used to express urgency and not to invoke a deity. This censorship of a legitimate advert is frustrating and ridiculous: the blasphemy laws in England have been abolished but we are seeing the same principle being enforced nonetheless.’
The BHA also pointed out that the adverts were only tangentially related to religion, being mostly
concerned with public policy and directed towards people who are not religious.
Mr Copson continued, ‘The Census Campaign is not intended to dissuade those who hold strong religious beliefs from holding them. We are asking people to be honest and if they are not religious, to say so. Ticking “No religion” means that their voices will be heard and we will have a more truthful picture of what people really believe today.’
We are continuing down the highly dangerous path of outlawing offence and avoiding even the possibility of offence, and from the looks of it out of sheer cowardice. Is this a side effect of outlawing incitement to religious hatred, or the recent upswing in Christian militancy? ‘For God’s sake’ isn’t a religious statement, any more than ‘Good God’ or ‘Oh my God’ (OMG – religious? Please!) – self-censorship only emboldens the zealous religious lobby and contributes to this problem. The companies which denied the ads should be ashamed of themselves. The BHA point out:
- Those who profess no religion have risen from 31% to 51% between 1983 and 2009.
- In 1983 66% identified as Christian, in 2008 the number was 43%.
- In 2008 37% of the UK population are sceptical, 35% have definite or doubtful.
- In 2009 only 17% of the British population attend religious services at least monthly, and only 11% attend at least weekly.
- Those self-described as members of the Church of England consist of 20% of the population in 2009 (40% in 1983). In 2008, it was found that 49% of this group never attend services; only 8% of people who identify with the CofE attend church weekly.
- 62% of people in Britain never attend a religious service.
The religious lobby needs to be seen as the minority which it is.
Christian Voice Leader is a Wifebeater
Stephen Green, leader of Christian Voice, has never been shy of berating gay people for our immorality. It’s now time to take him apart for his hypocrisy:
Caroline Green, who was married to the anti-gay Christian extremist for 26 years, says she has come forward now because “the people who support him financially and morally should know what he is really like”.
She told the Mail on Sunday that he had beaten her and her children, “brainwashed” them and forced them to live in a dilapidated caravan in remote Wales to protect them from the “evil” of urban life.
Mrs Green described the incident which prompted her to leave him, recalling how he made a list of her failings as a wife and then beat her until she bled with a piece of wood.
She said: “He even framed our marriage vows — he always put particular emphasis on my promise to obey him — and hung them over our bed. He believed there was no such thing as marital rape and for years I’d been reluctant to have sex with him, but he said it was my duty and was angry if I refused him.
“But the beating was the last straw. It convinced me I had to divorce him.”
She also said that he had beaten their eldest and middle sons with belts and broomsticks.
She added: “It was almost like living in a cult. We were all subjugated to his will and cowed by him. Over the years he belittled us and made us feel worthless.
So the next time Stephen Green is interviewed by the BBC as a counter-balance to gay-related news, you know just how severely to condemn them too.
The ‘Gay Agenda’: Phillips vs Hari
The hateful HateMail firebrand has actually gone public to defend her outrageous attack on the ‘gay agenda’. It’s a horrible, mean-spirited defence of a horrible, mean-spirited article. Of course she argues she and her fellow Christianists are the real victims – they have no choice but to say she’s standing up for ‘principles’, ‘normality’ and the country’s ‘basic moral framework’ – it’s pretty much the only way she can defend such naked, anti-gay hate. But read for yourself:
In an email, she wrote: “I’m sorry if what I wrote has offended some of your readers. You tell me that they may regard it as ‘over the top’. In fact, that is how I would describe some of the reaction to what I wrote.
“I have nothing against gay people and would always defend them against true prejudice – as I did in my article, and as I often do when considering the threat posed to them by radical Islamism. What does concern me, however, is the ‘gay rights’ political agenda which, as activists have often made clear, aims to change the basic moral framework of society.
What she means is gay people must know their place. As long as we accept we’re abnormal and unequal she’ll defend us against true prejudice (whatever that is).
“I am very surprised that readers may be offended by my suggestion that this agenda aims to destroy ‘normal’ sexual behaviour; as Andrew Sullivan made clear in his famous book, ‘Virtually Normal’, this is indeed a core aim.
“As for the issue of the teaching materials I would have thought that, given your readers’ concern for civil liberties, they would be disturbed by any manipulation of the school curriculum to promote a particular viewpoint about any group. There is no evidence at all that any such initiative has ever diminished any kind of prejudice or bullying in schools.
Yes there is – such an utter lie, but let me jump on the phrase ‘manipulation of the school curriculum to promote a particular viewpoint about … group’ and the nasty subtext contained therein. First off the Schools Out teaching materials for LGBT History Month are just that – additions which could be made to certain classes to inform children and young people about gay people if they want. How terrible it would be for gay kids to find out about the contributions made to society about other gay people. How terrible it would be for gay kids to be spoken about in classrooms as normal. Yet even that is disparaged by Phillips:
“And I know that many gay people are very decently troubled by my central point, that the equality agenda is depriving Christians of their rights to live their lives in accordance with their principles.
“I hope this helps explain my position more fully.”
It does. She’s arguing that Christian zealots should be allowed to discriminate freely based on belief alone.
Johann Hari on the other hand demonstrates that hate such has hers has consequences:
Jonathan Reynolds was a 15-year old boy from Bridgend in South Wales who was accused – accurately or not, we’ll never know – of being gay. He was yelled at for being a “faggot” and a “poof”. So one day, he sat a GSCE exam – later graded as an A – and went to the train tracks near his school and lay on them. He texted his sister: “Tell everyone that this is for anybody who eva said anything bad about me, see I do have feelings too. Blame the people who were horrible and injust to me, see I do have feeling too. Blame the people who were horrible and injust to me. This is because of them, I am human just like them. None of you blame yourself, mum, dad, Sam and the rest of the family. This is not because of you.” And then the train killed him.
I guess nobody told Jonathan Reynolds that, as the columnist Melanie Phillips put it, “just about everything in Britain is now run according to the gay agenda.” The great Gay Conquest didn’t make it from her imagination to his playground, or any playground in Britain. Gay kids are six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight siblings. Every week, I get emails from despairing gay kids who describe being thrown against lockers, scorned by their teachers if they complain, and – in some faith schools – told they will burn in Hell. Every day they have to brave playgrounds where the worst insult you can apply is to call something “gay”. They feel totally lost. This could have been your child, or my child, or Melanie Phillips’ child.
Melanie Phillips can go straight to hell.
Save Brenda Namigadde!
People are being killed in Uganda for being gay, and the ConDems are making a huge play about being gay friendly and more civil liberties friendly than their New Labour predecessors, but is Theresa May’s Home Office any less blind to homophobia against asylum seekers than Alan Johnson’s or Jacqui Smith’s? Read the story of Brenda Namigadde, who faces deportation to Uganda, where her life will be without question at risk:
Inside Yarl’s Wood detention centre, awaiting deportation to Uganda in less than 24 hours, Brenda Namigadde is desperate.
Namigadde fled her home country eight years ago after being persecuted for her relationship with another woman. She says she has always intended to return home when “things were better”. But things, she says, have just got worse.
After the murder of the gay Ugandan activist David Kato and with a chilling warning from Ugandan MP David Bahati ringing in her ears, she says she fears her life is over. Bahati, the author of a bill which would impose the death penalty on homosexuals, intervened in Namigadde’s case to warn her she should “repent” or be arrested on her return.
Speaking from Yarl’s Wood, Namigadde, 29, says: “My life is in danger. I don’t know what will happen to me. I’m very scared. I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept.”
She knows from experience what returning to her country will mean for her, she says. “I’ll be tortured, or killed, if I’m sent back. They’ve put people like me to death there.”
My point is this: even if the UK Border Agency were convinced (which they are) that she’s not gay (she demonstrably is), using the argument they always fall back on that ‘anyone could claim asylum by just pretending to be gay’, how could she morally be repatriated if Ugandan homophobes are on public record threatening her life anyway? The agency, a branch of the supposedly gay-friendly Home Office (don’t make me laugh, Stonewall), may not have suggested she just go home and ‘be discreet’ as they did under New Labour with gay Iranian asylum seekers, but just saying ‘she can’t prove she’s gay’ is surely no more acceptable.
Her asylum claim was turned down partly on the basis that the judge did not believe there was any evidence that she was homosexual.
Matthew Coats, head of immigration at the UK Border Agency, said her case had been considered by both the UK Border Agency and the courts on two separate occasions. “She has been found not to have a right to remain here,” he said. “An Immigration Judge found on the evidence before him that Ms Namigadde was not homosexual.”
What should she do to prove her sexual orientation? Have sex with a woman in front of a judge? For that matter is Coats suggesting that the story the Guardian reports of her past relationship is a lie? I’d be interested to know what criteria the UK Border Agency uses to prove whether or not someone is ‘homosexual’, and whether or not they take into account whether or not other people, even erroneously, believe they’re gay. The coalition agreement says:
“We will stop the deportation of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.”
And what about the http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-uk-new-instructions-on-deciding-lgbt.html, forcibly updated by the Supreme Court?
Brenda Namigadde must not be deported to Uganda.
Ugandan Gay Rights Activist Murdered
The Melanie Philips’ of the world don’t understand why it’s important to have protections for gay people written into law, nor why it’s important to teach the upcoming generations why hating people for being different is wrong. This is why:
One of Uganda‘s most prominent gay rights activists has been murdered in his home weeks after winning a court victory over a tabloid that called for homosexuals to be killed.
David Kato, the advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda, was bludgeoned to death in Mukono, Kampala, yesterday afternoon. Witnesses saw a man fleeing the scene in a car, and police are investigating.
Along with other Ugandan gay activists, Kato had reported increased harassment since 3 January, when a high court judge granted a permanent injunction against the Rolling Stone tabloid newspaper, preventing it from identifying homosexuals in its pages.
Late last year, Kato had been pictured on the front page of an issue carrying the headline “Hang Them”. He was one of the three complainants in the court case.
“Since the ruling, David said people had been harassing him, and warning they would ‘deal with him,’” Julian Pepe Onziema, a close friend and fellow gay rights activist, said.
The homophobia currently going mad in Uganda is religiously inflamed. That’s right – Christians who are supposed to believe in charity actually denying people equal rights (or indeed the right to life) for their inherent sexual orientation. Love the sinner, hate the sin? Not in Uganda – they at least know there’s no difference.
Baynham Murderers Get Leniency
Ian Baynham was kicked to death in Trafalgar Square two years ago for the terrible crime of being gay. It was a horrible reminder that although we now consider areas like the centre of London to be bastions of acceptance, hatred is still lurking everywhere for people who are different. What horribly also still true is that homophobic killing is still treated with leniency by the courts:
Ruby Thomas, 19, was one of three teenagers who attacked 62-year-old Ian Baynham in an incident likened by one witness at the Old Bailey last month to something out of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
Jurors then convicted Thomas, of Anerley, south London, and her ex-boyfriend Joel Alexander, now 20, of nearby Thornton Heath – who was today sentenced to six years – after hearing details of the assault in September 2009.
Thomas had been acting in a “lairy, mouthy way” and flirting with passersby before she turned on Baynham and his friend Philip Brown and screamed “fucking faggots” at them as they crossed the square.
She also smiled as she “put the boot into” an unconscious Baynham after Alexander had knocked him to the ground and caused a severe brain injury.
Baynham died 18 days later at the Royal London hospital without recovering consciousness. Police found his blood on Thomas’s handbag and the ballet pumps she had been wearing.
Judge Richard Hawkins increased Thomas’s sentence from six years to seven because of the homophobic nature of her actions. He said: “This was a case of mindless, drink-fuelled violence committed in public.”
A third defendant, Rachael Burke, 18, of Upper Norwood, south London, will serve a two-year sentence in a young offenders’ institution after being convicted of affray at a separate trial.
Surely a real example of ‘broken Britain’ is when a judge increases a tariff for killing someone for being gay by a year rather than twenty. These are two, six and seven year sentences for murder -yet again homophobic scum get away with it by being ‘public schoolgirls’, ‘usually responsible’ or the jury believing the most preposterous justifications for Thomas’ behaviour from her barrister, reducing the charge to manslaughter . This is what happened:
The court was told that Thomas, of Anerley, south-east London, had been acting in a “lairy, mouthy way” and flirting with random passersby before turning on Baynham and his friend Philip Brown and screaming “fucking faggots” at them as they crossed the square.
When Baynham confronted her, there was a scuffle during which she hit him with her handbag. Alexander knocked him to the ground, causing a severe brain injury as his head hit the pavement.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told the court: “That did not suffice. There is evidence that the female defendants then began putting the boot into Mr Baynham, who was still prone on his back, clearly unconscious and in distress … shocked onlookers saw repeated stamping to his chest and forceful kicks to his head.” He said the girls had been fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol.
How on earth was this manslaughter? How on earth could the sentences be this puny? How on earth could Ben Summerskill of Stonewall not condemn their leniency?
Government Drugs Advisor…Hates Gays
Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, a Manchester GP and member of the Maranatha Community, an inter-denominational Christian movement, was appointed to the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last week.
The committee was plunged into controversy in 2009 when its chairman, Professor David Nutt, resigned after clashing with the government over its decision to reclassify cannabis from a class C to a class B drug.
Raabe, who stood for the European parliament for the Christian Peoples Alliance in 2009 but has since left the party, is medical co-ordinator of the Council for Health and Wholeness (CHW), a Christian organisation based within the Maranatha Community.
Briefing documents for MPs produced by Raabe on behalf of the CHW extol the benefits of marriage in fighting addiction. One states: “Marriage is associated with greater happiness, less depression, less alcohol abuse and less smoking.”
The CHW also makes strong claims about the health risks of “the homosexual lifestyle”. A briefing document states: “The media and the gay movement portray the homosexual lifestyle as happy, healthy and fulfilled. However, the homosexual lifestyle is associated with a large number of very serious physical and emotional health consequences.”
It adds: “A high proportion of homosexual men engage in a destructive lifestyle, for example contracting HIV/Aids or other STIs, and develop addictions to drugs or alcohol. There is a higher burden of depression, [and] attempted or completed suicide among the ‘gay population’.”
Raabe also co-authored a paper that claimed: “While the majority of homosexuals are not involved in paedophilia, it is of grave concern that there is a disproportionately greater number of homosexuals among paedophiles and an overlap between the gay movement and the movement to make paedophilia acceptable.”
Wow. Gay people are paeodophiles eh? If these are the whacked out conclusions this man is capable of, what on earth is he doing advising the government about anything? It’s kind of shocking to see this sort of language even one step removed from any public body to be honest, but he argues:
“This is an appointment regarding drug policy and what views I may or may not have on homosexuality are irrelevant.”
They’re not remotely irrelevant. Firstly this man who is advising the government is an avowed bigot – the government, not some private company or faith based charity. Secondly it’s not a question of his personal views (to which he’s privately entitled) – he’s acted on them. Most importantly though this is an advisor who has demonstrated he bases his conclusions on prejudice and not evidence. It’s a ghastly development and should be reversed.
The Attacks on LGBT History Month Begin
Young children are to be taught about homosexuality in their maths, geography, science and English lessons, it has emerged.
As part of a Government-backed drive to ‘celebrate the gay community’, maths problems could be introduced that involve gay characters.
In geography classes, students will be asked why homosexuals move from the countryside to cities – and words such as ‘outing’ and ‘pride’, will be used in language classes.
The lesson plans are designed to raise awareness about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues and, in theory, could be used for children as young as four.
They will also mean youngsters are exposed to images of same-sex couples and books such as And Tango Makes Three, which tells the story of two male penguins raising a chick, which was inspired by events at New York’s Central Park Zoo.
The HateMail is so sick. ‘Are to be taught?’ Really? When the materials are optional? And the scaremongering about younger children learning about same-sex relationships – what’s that about? Is anyone suggesting they start watching hardcore gay porn? No. The material the HateMail is decrying references a real world example of same-sex behaviour in the animal kingdom. Do they think they would get away with such bigoted reporting if it were about race? Of course not – they still think that attacking gay people is fair game though. It isn’t.
Lesson plans have been drawn up for pupils as young as four, in a scheme funded with a £35,000 grant from an education quango, the Training and Development Agency for Schools.
The initiative will be officially launched next month at the start of “LGBT History Month” – an initiative to encourage teaching about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues.
The lesson plans, spread across the curriculum, will be offered to all schools, which can choose whether or not to make use of them.
But critics last night called the initiative a poor use of public money which could distract from the teaching of “core” subjects.
At least the Torygraph acknowledges the teaching materials are optional, but check out Melanie Phillips’ latest hardcore rant:
Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the camouflage of education. It is an abuse of childhood.
It’s an abuse of childhood to educate children appropriately about same-sex relationships? That’s batshit crazy and she knows it.
And it’s all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very concept of normal sexual behaviour.
So we’re back to gay = abnormal. This may have been a normal argument itself about 25 years ago but it isn’t now. Homosexuality has always been with us and exists throughout the animal kingdom. It’s no more harmful than heterosexuality, it isn’t a choice and is by any reasonable definition normal. Mad Mel is getting lost in her own mad hyperbole again.
Not so long ago, an epic political battle raged over teaching children that homosexuality was normal. The fight over Section 28, as it became known, resulted in the repeal of the legal requirement on schools not to promote homosexuality.
As the old joke has it, what was once impermissible first becomes tolerated and then becomes mandatory.
Except it’s not mandatory. Nothing like a lie, eh Mel?
And the other side of that particular coin, as we are now discovering, is that values which were once the moral basis for British society are now deemed to be beyond the pale.
Right so homophobia was the moral basis for society eh? How lost she must feel now then. And how alone she should be.
What was once an attempt to end unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse.
Expressing what used to be the moral norm of Western civilisation is now not just socially impermissible, but even turns upstanding people into lawbreakers.
People who break the law are lawbreakers. The law doesn’t allow anyone to break the law, even on religious grounds and nor should it. Fuck off and grow up Mel. The world has moved on, and if even Tories have accepted that then it shows just how out of touch you and your hate rag really are. It was inevitable that there would be a mini backlash after the failings of the Christian devout to get their own way, but this is ridiculous. And futile. She (and they) won’t succeed in turning the clock back.
HateMail Portrays Gay Couple as Nazis
It should come as no surprise to those of us who track the HateMail’s bigotry, but check out the guy on the left’s right arm.
This is in response to the story about Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy succeeding in their case against Peter and Hazel Bull, zealous Christian B & B owners who wouldn’t let them share a room on religious grounds.
Join with me here in condemning the HateMail yet again, and continuing to encourage everyone we know who still buys that rag finally to stop.
Christian Soldiers Fail Fail and Fail Again
The zealous Christian owners of the Bed & Breakfast which refused a double room to a gay couple have been found guilty of discrimination:
Devout Christian hotel owners who refused to allow a gay couple to share a double room acted unlawfully, a judge at Bristol county court ruled today.
Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, who are civil partners, won their landmark claim for discrimination in a case funded and supported by theEquality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
The ruling, one of the first made under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, is likely to provide those in partnerships with greater protection from discrimination.
The owners of the Chymorvah private hotel in Cornwall, Peter and Hazel Bull, do not allow couples who are not married to share double rooms because they do not believe in sex before marriage.
The Bulls asserted that their refusal to accommodate civil partners in a double room was not to do with sexual orientation but “everything to do with sex”. The restriction, the owners said, applied equally to heterosexual couples who are not married.
In his ruling, Judge Andrew Rutherford said the hotel had directly discriminated against the couple on the grounds of their sexual orientation and awarded them compensation of £1,800 each.
A great result. I’ve heard numerous complaints that the Bulls should be allowed to discriminate against anyone they like, but the Sexual Orientation Regulations of course apply because they are providing a service, which may be conducted within their home, but which constrains their freedom to discriminate there. Ben Summerskill of Stonewall points out:
During passage of the 2006 Equality Act, Stonewall fought hard to secure pioneering “goods and services” protections for lesbian and gay people, protecting them for the first time against discrimination in the delivery of public and commercial services. The preceding legal entitlement to deny gay people a service was every bit as offensive as the notorious signs outside guesthouses that once said: “No blacks. No Irish.” And people certainly took advantage of it, as lesbians denied smear tests and gay men refused holiday bookings were well aware.
The Bulls suggest that it’s their freedom, and not that of a gay couple, that is compromised by the existing law. But no part of the current and carefully calibrated compact in Britain’s equality legislation forces anyone to do anything. However, if a couple choose to turn their home into a commercial enterprise, why should they be any more entitled to exempt themselves from equality legislation than from health and safety laws?
Of course they shouldn’t – common sense says they shouldn’t. But the Christian devout keep protesting their right to discriminate as a necessary component of their religion trumps every right gay people have to be protected from discrimination. We’ve had relationship counsellors, civil registrars and others professing their right not to serve gay people in the same manner as they would others, and they’ve all failed. Judge Andrew Rutherford said:
the right of the defendants to manifest their religion is not absolute and “can be limited to protect the rights and freedoms of the claimants”.
No doubt the devout will continue to insist they’re being persecuted, but I would insist that quote proves conclusively otherwise.
