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.
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.
