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If you’re gay you’re “living in a state of active sin”, and that’s why a volunteer with a Christian radio station has been fired.

Pink News has the story.

This guy knew there would be issues at Refresh Radio in Manchester when he decided to come out, he says, but he wanted to be honest.

The Christians concerned are evangelicals. Many of this brand of Christian are, of course, total nutcases and seem to spend half their religious lives obsessing about what other people do between the sheets.

Apparently, Pink News has repeatedly emailed and phoned for a response from these lunatics, but, predictably, they have not responded.

When tolerance gets a bad name

I ain’t against gay people. I’m just against it being promoted to kids . . . I know people that’s gay. My wife’s got friends that are gay. I got family that’s gay. Cousins and shit. He cool as fuck. He cool as a motherfucker. He’s my homie. I just mean that on some of these TV shows, they got dudes kissing. And kids are watching that shit.

We can’t have kids growing up with that . . . but let’s keep it behind the scenes. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it if that’s what two dudes wanna do. Cool. But that’s not bring that out into the world, where the kids can see that. We don’t want all the kids doing that. ‘Cause that ain’t how we was originally put here to do. Like I said, I ain’t got no problem with the gays.

These words of wisdom come from a rap “artist” called Warren G (pictured).

A blogger calling him/herself Black Tsunami over at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters (featured on our sidebar) has blogged this.

Need I dust off the old argument? No. Didn’t think so. It’s obvious that this “dude” is just a bloody ignorant and homophobic as the Pope. People who like to think of themselves as liberal have for years trotted out the old I-have-nothing-against-gays-but-wouldn’t-want-my-son/daughter-to-turn-out-to-be-one argument.

Black Tsunami goes on:

Well speaking for myself and so many LGBTs of color he has insulted (and many of them lead households that include children), I want to school Mr. G. on a few things.

With all due respect to Warren G, maybe he should stop obsessing over what he thinks is gay sexual behavior and start focusing on heterosexual sexual behavior. Since he has a problem with two men kissing, I would sincerely hope that he has an equal problem with songs and videos that objectify women as sex objects, that teaches black children to be underachievers, and that romanticize the selling of drugs.

Or have I just described the contents of his last albums?

Just to be clear about things – homosexuality is not a “lifestyle.” Putting on a skin tight dress or wearing your pants down past your ass, drinking and hitting on each other in a club, and then having wild sex that leads to illegitimate births is a lifestyle.

Why don’t folks like Warren G. ever criticize that?

You see this is the problem that LGBTs of color face in the black community. This open hypocrisy that we are supposed to say nothing about.

I am so sick and tired of members of black community will screw each other till the cows come home without the courtesy of a wedding ring and then have the absolute nerve to pass judgment on LGBTs of color just because we want a little affection from each other.

I am so sick and tired of black pastors who will say nothing about the depressing rate of black men in prison and black girls with babies but will break each other’s neck to get camera time in order to dehumanize LGBTs of color.

In addition to this excellent argument, Warren G obviously can’t see the flaw in his words: if kids can see heterosexuals kissing and cuddling in TV programmes and on the street, and he has nothing against homosexuality, then why can’t kids be allowed to see two girls or two guys showing similar affection?

Nah. People like this “dude” give tolerance a bad name.

Bigotry and Brüno

Sacha Baron Cohen’s film Brüno, which is about a gay fashion journalist, has been banned in predominantly Muslim Malaysia for its gay sex scenes and depiction of gay life.



The movie’s already been banned in Ukraine for the same reason.

A spokeswoman for Malaysia’s film censorship board has told the Press Association, “It’s banned because the story is based on gay life [. . .] There are a lot of sex scenes. It’s contrary to our brainless, primitive bigotry.”

Sorry, those last three words should read “culture”. A mere typographical error on my part.

The evil of Ratzo's “living and relevant force”

So the Catholic Church is just a “creative minority”, Pope Ratzo admits.

The homophobic old bigot was speaking to reporters on the plane taking him to the Czech Republic, and said that creative minorities “determine the future”.

“The Catholic Church must understand itself as a creative minority with a legacy of values which are not a thing of the past, but which are a very living and relevant force that must be realised, rendered present in the public debate,” said the Devil’s spawn.

A very “living and relevant force” that doesn’t think condoms should be distributed as a way of preventing, to some extent, the spread of AIDS? That “living and relevant force”?

Or is it the “living and relevant force” that won’t allow birth control by those among whom, through fear, it wields its evil influence, even though kids can’t be provided for in some societies, and, anyway, every new birth is a further drain on the Earth’s resources?

Perhaps it is the “living and relevant force” that won’t allow abortion – on pain of excommunication – even if women are vulnerable, likely to die, be unable to look after the child or children.

Then there’s the “living and relevant force” that opposes the rights of same-sex partners, and even causes some young people to commit suicide because they can’t bear being gay after being told by Ratzo and his despicable cohort that it’s evil.

This “living and relevant force” continues to insist on sectarian schools, of course, thus ensuring that young people feel alienated from their fellow human beings, not to mention the “living and relevant force” that has tried to cover up the actions of pervy priests who’ve abused young people.

Yes, Benny, old chap, a really useful “living and relevant force”, that!

The wrongs of rites

The human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell of OutRage! has entered the fray over loopy Christians who feel they can “exorcise” people’s sexuality out of them.

He speaks out in an article in the Brighton magazine Gscene (which also, incidentally, carries a fetching picture of the Pink Triangle Trust’s own George Broadhead, alongside his forthright views on a leading bigoted Muslim oaf who has declared from on high that homosexuality is not acceptable).

On “exorcisms”, Tatchell says in the Gscene article (mysteriously in both quote marks and italics!):

“The exorcism rituals involve the casting out of alleged demons and witches that supposedly possess a gay person’s soul and turn them away from heterosexuality.

“There are claims that gay teenagers and young adults are being subjected to exorcisms at the insistence of their parents and pastors, in an attempt to rid them of same-sex attraction.

“The exorcisms can include traumatic emotional scenes where the victims are surrounded by a group of church elders who scream at them to drive out the evil spirits and who sometimes shake their bodies.

“When this is done to youngsters under 18, it is a form of child abuse and the police should intervene to stop it.

“There needs to be a thorough police investigation of all the churches that are doing these exorcisms.”
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Related links:
Casting out demons
PTT condemns exorcisms
Exorcism storm
Rite and wrong

PTT news release on Muslim homophobe

Since our post about the Muslim homophobic bigot Ali Abdussalam Trekki, the Pink Triangle Trust issued a press release over the weekend, quoting its secretary, George Broadhead. Here it is.

NEWS RELEASE 26 September, 2009


Muslims’ primitive religious taboos trump human rights

Humanists have reacted angrily to the homophobic public pronouncements of Mr Ali Abdussalam Trekki, the President of the UN General Assembly. These have been condemned by the UK gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) and the International Humanist & Ethical Union (IHEU) which has special consultative status with the UN (New York, Geneva, Vienna), general consultative status at UNICEF (New York) and the Council of Europe (Strasbourg).

The PTT’s secretary George Broadhead, commented: “The President’s pronouncements are despicable, but are hardly surprising given the intrinsic homophobia of the religion he adheres to. However, like other members of the General Assembly, he is surely duty-bound to represent the principles and the aims of the United Nations, according to the Charter adopted on June 26, 1945, with its respect for human rights and fundamental freedom for all human beings. Instead he has implicitly endorsed the barbaric treatment of thousands of gay people throughout the world, particularly in Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia. He should be asked to resign immediately or be removed from office.”

The IHEU’s long-serving representative at the UN, Geneva, Roy Brown, commented: “Of course, Mr Ali Abdussalam Trekki is entirely right in saying, as a Muslim, that homosexuality ‘is not acceptable by our religion, our tradition’. What is deeply worrying is his clear but unspoken belief that Muslims’ primitive religious taboos should therefore trump human rights – a view that, sadly, is becoming increasingly common among Muslim delegations throughout the United Nations system.”

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Related links:
More on antigay Muslim bigot
Cruelty, as only Islam knows how
How Islam “respects women”
Islamists net their victims

More on antigay Muslim bigot

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) “is deeply worried and outraged by UN Assembly new president Ali Abdussalam Treki’s failure to consider the protection of the life and safety of lesbians, gay men, trans, intersex and bisexual people all over the world a matter of human rights”, the organisation says in a news release.

You can see the background here, because, as you might expect, this blog’s owner, the Pink Triangle Trust, has been rather exercised, too, about this bigot.

The ILGA news release goes on:

In an interview prior to his first address to the UN Assembly in his new role, Mr Treki declared himself to be not in favour at all with reference to the Statement in favour of the decriminalisation of homosexuality signed by 66 Countries and read by the Argentinian representative last December at the General Assembly in New York.

Furthermore, Mr Treki said that the matter referred to by the Statement, i.e. decriminalisation, was not acceptable in the majority of the world and that there are some countries that allow that (sic), thinking it is a kind of democracy.

Considering that the Statement called for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality, one cannot but conclude that the new President of the UN Assembly is... in favour of criminalising lesbians and gay men, bisexual, trans and intersex people. The worrying and serious implications of this attitude, coming from the new head of an institution which is supposed to regard human rights all human rights as the most sacred value, cannot be overstated.

We appeal to the representatives of the States which signed the Statement against criminalisation of homosexuality, but also voted for the election of Mr Treki in his new position, to demand an explanation to the UN Assembly President for his words and react consequently.

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Related links:
Cruelty, as only Islam knows how
How Islam “respects women”
Islamists net their victims

When Christians get nasty

“If you have followed what Religious Right leaders have been saying about gay people for, oh, the past 30 years, you’d be stunned to learn that Religious Right leaders say the key to resisting the ‘homosexual extremist movement’ is to stop being so nice and polite when it comes to the gays.”

So writes Peter, of America’s Right Wing Watch.

Yup. Christians can be nasty. As usual, it’s what other people do between the sheets that gets them going, which of course brings into question their own sexual hang-ups, quirks and kinks, because, believe it or not, there is a brand of religionist who doesn’t give a monkey’s about people’s sexuality and just gets on with being religious.

According to these loons, though, “Christ wasn’t about being nice”. Not that they’d know, but, while the Jesus of the stories could be a bit of a madam at times, he could also be quite a nice guy here and there.

How would these nutjobs know what Jesus thought? And who gives a stuff, apart from said nutjobs?

Anyway, Peter’s article (do go and read it), continues:

About 100 activists at the How to Take Back America conference attended the workshop on “How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement.” Workshop speakers Matt Barber and Brian Camenker urged people to be loud rabble-rousers when opposing the teaching of tolerance or sex ed in public [i.e. state] schools. They said not to worry about being nice or polite or liked, but to push God’s anti-gay agenda forcefully. “Christ wasn’t about being nice,” said Barber. Camenker bragged about having once sent two congregations to scream outside a targeted legislator’s home.

The workshop was largely a parade of horror stories about gay activists using the schools to recruit children and undermine the values taught by conservative Christian parent an exhortation for people to tell the “truth” about “homosexual extremists.”

Barber employed Nazi imagery, with gay propaganda “goose-stepping along” and “trampling” anyone who disagrees. He also strung together the most adjectives I’ve yet heard applied all at once to President Obama, declaring that “this president is a secular humanist, a radical socialist moral relativist.”

Barber sounds like a really nice guy.

Not.

Homosexuality not acceptable to Muslims – says Muslim

The President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Libyan Ali Abdussalam Treki, thinks homosexuality isn’t acceptable for most of the world.

At least that’s what he said when opening an assembly session.

Some journalists asked him what he thought of the “Declaration for the Universal Decriminalisation of Homosexuality”. Not much, it seems.

This homophobic bigot’s reply was, “It is a very thorny argument. As a Muslim, I do not agree with it. I believe it is not acceptable for most of the world, and it is totally unacceptable for our tradition and religion.”

And what’s your religion got to do with human rights, you pompous oaf? It’s about as far from human rights as any religion can get.

I was chatting about this to my Pink Triangle colleague George Broadhead, who’s also secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust, who told me, “This is outrageous, but the personal views he expressed are hardly surprising given the intrinsic homophobia of the religion he adheres to [see links below].

“However, like other members of the General Assembly, he is duty-bound to represent the principles and the aims of the United Nations, according to the Charter adopted on 26 June 1945 with its respect for human rights and fundamental freedom for all human beings. Instead he has implicitly endorsed the barbaric treatment of thousands of gay people throughout the world. He should be asked to resign or removed from office.”

You’re too kind, George. Perhaps stringing him up by his thumbs would be more appropriate. Not a great assault on his human rights, relatively speaking.

UPDATE: George has, since this post was written, received this comment from Roy Brown, the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s main representative at the UN:

Of course, Mr Ali Abdussalam Trekki is entirely right in saying, as a Muslim, that homosexuality “is not acceptable by our religion, our tradition”. What is deeply worrying is his clear but unspoken belief that Muslims’ primitive religious taboos should therefore trump human rights – a view that, sadly, is becoming increasingly common among Muslim delegations throughout the United Nations system.

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Related links:
Cruelty, as only Islam knows how
How Islam “respects women”
Islamists net their victims

Catholics welcome Pope, everyone pays

Catholics in Scotland are cock-a-hoop over the fact that an evil old ex-Nazi is visiting the country as part of his UK tour next year.

Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? The thing is, they – and by that I mean they alone – won’t have to pay for his security and other costs associated with such occasions as he’s paraded through the streets and preaches to the masses. They will pay something, yes, but so will every other taxpayer, whether they want to feast their eyes on this bigot or not. And most won’t, of course.

If I want to go and see a rock concert, say, or an opera, I expect to pay, and then to go to the venue, not have the object of my musical taste paraded through the streets for me, with security provided at enormous cost (and why the need for so much security for Ratzo if people don’t want to kill the sodding homophobe?).

So let the Catholics of Scotland – and the rest of the UK – bugger off to Italy. Keep the Pope there. Let the Deluded Herd go to him instead of vice versa. That would kill two birds with one stone: the damnable, evil old tosser wouldn’t be littering our streets with his presence, and only those who get a spiritual hard-on by contemplating his well-fed face will need to pay.
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Related link: POPE – People Opposing Papal Edicts

God and the climate

There was an interesting letter in the Scotsman newspaper yesterday about God and the climate.

A while ago we were pondering on how the Pope was blaming atheists for marginalising God, therefore putting themselves at odds with nature.

It’s one thing to say mankind is at odds with the environment, and we can see the consequences of our raping of the planet – whether global warming is one of them or not, and that’s a hot topic (pun intended) – but to say it’s because we’re marginalising something for which there’s no proof anyway is pushing it a bit.

Anyway, in response to something that had obviously passed before (perhaps someone commenting on this very thing, who knows?), a writer in Dumfries called Flood has this to say:

Given its apocalyptic potential, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the various religions got in on the climate change act (Letters, 22 September).

When God, in His infinite wisdom, created the Earth, why did He put all that coal, oil and natural gas under the ground? Was it just for decoration? Did He not intend the subjects of His creation to make use of it? Could Christian Aid explain what exactly is sinful about putting a lump of coal on the fire to keep warm in winter?

And why, when He set up the global climatic system, did God make it so sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels that an additional whiff of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere brings the whole planetary biosphere crashing about our ears? It strikes me that this God is either all-knowing or all-loving, but not both.

Flood is an appropriate name given that the Flood (usually with a capital F) was the last purported climatic catastrophe (yeah, somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates, not the entire Earth, as Genesis would have us believe, and there were no animals going into a boat two by two).

But what’s this sceptic doing with all the capital H’s on his pronouns? I find this odd, because on many atheist and sceptic websites and blogs I still see this nonsense: He this and Him that. Even the KJ Bible doesn’t do that, nor the Book of Common Prayer.

Just something left over from something or other, I guess.

So much for Liberty!

Liberty has expelled the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) as an affiliate organisation. Allan Horsfall, CHE’s Life President – and, together with Ray Gosling, a tireless campaigner for Gay Monitor – explains:

CHE, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, has been expelled from affiliation to Liberty, the broad human-rights organisation that CHE has been an affiliate of for 40 years.

The reason for the chucking CHE out is that CHE proposed a motion for the Liberty AGM that they should consider some Statute of Limitation (time-wise) in trials of historic sexual abuse. Such limitations are common on the Continent and North America but, in this country, no, no, no.

If you look at Gay Monitor, you will see that we’ve attended many recent trials. Sometimes good men go to prison. But sometimes a judge will say, “Stop it – this is nonsense,” as in the case of David Jones the footballer, now manager of Cardiff City. Sometimes, a jury will quickly acquit – see on Gay Monitor “Case Not Guilty”, where on 12 charges the jury found unanimously not guilty on all charges in 12 minutes flat! But sometimes it doesn’t go like that and good men go to prison. These cases cost a vast amount of public money to stage. Some way needs to be found to limit this as in most states of the USA and many countries of the EU. This was the proposition for debate put by CHE that resulted in Liberty throwing out CHE.

So much for Liberty!

If I was still a member of Liberty, I’d resign in protest. Unfortunately, I allowed my membership to lapse some time ago because I was deeply troubled by the organisation.

POPE – People Opposing Papal Edicts

The Pope is due to visit Britain next year, and, in my capacity as secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust, I’ve issued the following news release calling for protests. It’s already begun to appear in online LGBT outlets.

Gay Humanists call for strong protest when Pope visits UK

The gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) has called for a strong protest to be made when Pope Benedict XVI visits the UK early next year.

The PTT’s secretary George Broadhead said: “This pope has shown himself to be paranoid about homosexuality. His opposition to LGBT rights knows no bounds. In his Christmas message last year he declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. This must be the most outrageous and bizarre claim yet made by someone who has already got a well-deserved reputation as one of the most viciously homophobic world leaders on a par with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

“The Vatican reinforced its anti-gay reputation by strongly opposing a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against gays and the Pope’s Christmas message provided clear evidence of an obsession about homosexuality which is tantamount to paranoia.

“It is imperative that the strongest possible protest be made when he visits the UK next year,” continued Mr Broadhead. “This is not without precedent. During the last papal visit to the UK by John Paul II in 1982, a protest called POPE (People Opposing Papal Edicts) was instigated by the Gay Humanist Group of which I was a founder member.

“It had the support of other gay and secular organisations, including the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the National Secular Society. On the occasion of the next papal visit, we must pull out all the stops to demonstrate our opposition.”

Also of interest: my article “The paranoid Pope” in a recent Gay & Lesbian Humanist magazine, where we discuss Pope Benedict’s condemnation of gays; and our “Out of print” article (taken from an earlier print edition of the magazine), “Enter the Enforcer”, by Matthew Thompson.

Cruelty, as only Islam knows how

Islam, Aceh style, means you can get a hundred lashes for being gay and you can be stoned to death for adultery.

This is deemed the correct punishment by the Religion of Peace™, it seems.

Amnesty International is calling for the new bylaw to be scrapped. It’s a “local Islamic Criminal Code [that] was passed by the Aceh Provincial House of Representatives on Monday”, says the Christian think tank Ekklesia in the above-linked article, which continues:

“The new criminal bylaw flies in the face of international human rights law as well as provisions of the Indonesian constitution,” commented Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director.

He added: “Stoning to death is particularly cruel and constitutes torture, which is absolutely forbidden under all circumstances in international law.”

Indonesia’s central government has indicated that the law may contravene Indonesia’s existing human rights protections under the country’s constitution. [. . .]

Some of these provisions, particularly punishment by caning, are not new in Aceh and already violate international human rights standards on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Campaigners, says Ekklesia, are urging Aceh’s newly elected legislature, due to take office in October, to repeal the law as matter of urgent priority.

More cross words

A Christian nurse from Exeter, UK, who’s been facing disciplinary action for insisting on wearing a necklace with a cross on it, has, under duress, accepted an offer of redeployment and has instructed lawyers to file an action at the Employment Tribunal for discrimination.

We covered the story yesterday, concluding that ornamental jewellery is OK provided it doesn’t get in the way of health and safety.

I went as far as to say that’s OK even if it’s religious, since only the coldest-hearted of us find no comfort in any object, for whatever reason.

But health-and-safety rules are there for all, and they were behind the ruling of the health trust that employs Shirley Chaplin in Exeter.

And that should go for the Muslim staff members who, according to Chaplin, are allowed to wear scarves because they perceive this garment as part of their religion.

Catholic wants kids not to have loving families

Nice to see that Scotland has at last got its finger out over same-sex adoption. England and Wales did it four years ago. Scotland has just caught up.

But the move has its critics among the Deluded Herd, as you can imagine.

Same-sex couples are now to be given the right to adopt children as a couple, as opposed to how it has been up to now: that one partner can be the official adoptive parent, while the other has no legal status in relation to the child or children.

Given that Scotland has the same civil partnerships as England and Wales, what has the legislature been waiting for?

The move has its critics, of course. No prizes for guessing who in particular. Scotland’s Herald newspaper, linked to above, goes on:

However, the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 legislation has been criticised by the Catholic Church.

Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Church in Scotland, said yesterday that the Catholic Church had opposed the reform because it was not in the best interests of children.

“Children need security and stability and civil partnerships and same[-]sex relationships are profoundly unstable,” he said.

“This change is unlikely to have an effect on the shortage of adoptive parents because there are very few same[-]sex couples interested in adoption.

“It would have been better if the Government had launched a campaign to encourage heterosexual married couples to consider adopting.”

What does this prat mean by “very few”? That perhaps couples have been put off by the restrictions hitherto, because they haven’t been able to adopt as couples? Well, there were 80 adoptions in England and Wales last year. That’s at least 80 kids – possibly more – taken out of care homes and given to potentially loving couples.

And a spokesperson for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering is quoted as saying, “The Act has increased the number of potential parents ready to provide a new home for a child who cannot grow up with their own family.”

So stuff that up your cassock, Mr God Botherer.

Fast, food and folly

Another example – as if it were needed – of how touchy-feely do-gooders want to bow to the strange beliefs (and at taxpayers’ expense) of deluded people comes to us in Britain’s Telegraph.

It describes how Home Office staff were told not to eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan, which ends this week. During this so-called “holy” month, Muslims believe, for whatever reason, that they are forbidden to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.

The Home Office has spent our money on a five-page document that “tells civil servants that eating lunch near a colleague who is fasting can make them feel hungry”.

In a story that, willy-nilly and with no logic or even a nod to the rules of punctuation, mixes single and double quotation marks (my hobbyhorse – don’t argue!), the Telegraph says the document was produced by something called the Home Office Islamic Network, which also is paid for out of taxpayers’ money.

But the odd thing is that the Muslim Public Affairs Committee says this is a load of cobblers. “It is designed to create more hatred in the hearts of non-Muslims,” it says. “We don’t care how much non-Muslims eat in front of us.

“It’s never been an issue and never will be and we have never asked for any special treatment or sensitivity from non-Muslims whilst fasting.”

There you have it, straight from the horse’s unfed mouth.

How do these woolly minded do-gooders think Muslims cope when they’re walking the streets and passing the many food shops – especially those that cook food on the premises? Do they have to hold their breath so as not to sniff the aromas?

The point of fasting is to make a sacrifice, isn’t it? One assumes Muslims don’t want it to be easy. What would be the point?

Cross words over religious gewgaws

A Christian nurse who wears her religion not on her sleeve but around her neck has been meeting bosses today to discover whether she’ll be forced out of her job for doing so.

It’s another of those cases that see people wanting to wear some gewgaw but it’s against the dress code of where they work or go to school.

Now let me put my cards on the table. I have nothing against bits of jewellery, and, if they represent something that means something to the wearer, so be it. I don’t like organised religion, but I’m not going to kick up a stink if someone wishes to wear a piece of jewellery that just happens to reflect that belief.

When it gets in the way of, say, health and safety (perhaps a hospital patient might, in a moment of panic, grab the neck chain and injure the nurse wearing it, for instance) it’s a different matter.

But Christians and others who are told to take off whatever is likely to cause a problem always reach for the freedom-of-religion argument. You can’t tell me to do that: you’re discriminating against me on religious grounds.

Bollocks! We live in such a politically correct country here in the UK that it’s doubtful a boss would tell someone to take something off just because it’s religious.

However, in the case of Shirley Chaplin, the woman whose story we’re featuring here (the Telegraph link, again, is here), she claims other members of staff have been allowed to wear necklaces.

If that is true, and they’re doing the same job as she is, then it’s wrong. If they’re doing a different job, then maybe different rules apply.

As with so many of these stories, we learn only through selective journalism, and the truth of the matter will come out only in a court or hearing, where witnesses can be examined by experienced questioners. But, again, we’re at the mercy of journos when these tribunals are reported.

There’s one telling quote in the Telegraph story that ought to be exercising secularists, though: a spokesman for the health trust concerned “said Mrs Chaplin herself had also admitted [that] wearing a cross was not a requirement of her faith”.

This suggests that the trust would allow the wearing of just about anything if it were “a requirement of her faith”. Does that mean that, if the cross were such a requirement, that would trump health and safety?

In stories such as this, we’re often told, “Oh, but they let Muslims wear scarves.” Unfortunately, that often seems to be the case, because we’re just so damned scared of offending Muzzies’ sensibilities and risking being called racist, when, of course, Islam is not a race.

The rules should be simple: you dress according to the code appropriate to your working environment, with no exceptions; and, if your “faith” dictates you should cover your hair or your arms for hygiene reasons, you cover up or clear out.

As for a dress code that doesn’t affect health and safety, such as the post linked to above (the link, again, is here), which concerned a Sikh girl who wanted to wear a bangle at school, well that’s something for another argument. You may or may not agree with school uniforms, or petty restrictions on what jewellery kids should wear.

But, if there is a dress code, then it should be for all pupils, with no exceptions for those of a deluded frame of mind.

Lithuania’s Section 28

I see the European Parliament has adopted a resolution criticising legislation in Lithuania that, from March 2010, will ban the discussion of homosexuality in schools and any reference to homosexuality in public information that can be viewed by children.

This is so reminiscent of Section 28.

Non-Brits will be interested to know what that is, although it’s been referred to as just that for so long that they probably have a good idea.

It was a section of the Local Government Act of 1988, and it effectively banned the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality within local-authority institutions.

No one, as far as I know, was ever prosecuted under it, but it caused a lot of self-censorship. It was a nasty, vicious piece of legislation that was invented by the Tories. No surprise there. They’ve changed their tune a bit now, although one suspects it’s as much for political expediency as for a genuine wish to see equality.

People seem to think that something they don’t like – in this case the natural phenomenon of same-sex attraction – can somehow be stamped out if we just don’t talk about it.

It’s going to take some brave campaigners in Lithuania to prove them wrong.

Demos and counterdemos

There’s this band of people about to march through your city. You don’t like what they stand for, and you don’t care much for free speech.

While there are some who also don’t like what they stand for, they’re happy to let the march go because that’s what freedom of expression is about and, anyway, there will be marches opposed to those views in the future. Everyone gets a chance.

But you’re one of those people who are determined, by hook or by crook, to ensure that the march does not go ahead. How do you do it? Well, you threaten to hold a counterdemonstration, that’s what.

Suddenly, the police say, “Hey, there could be violence here.” And they ban the first march, which might have gone ahead without trouble if there had been no threat from other elements.

This is happening in Scotland.

I don’t know in detail just what sort of ethnic and political makeup the English Defence League – which seems to be about to form a Scottish arm – holds. Certainly, its choice of name doesn’t exactly endear it to those of a suspicious frame of mind. It has too much of the National Front about it, somehow, or at least the British National Party.

But, name apart, it claims it’s against Islamic extremism, not Muslims themselves.

Yet, according to the story linked to above, which appeared in yesterday’s Scotsman, some of its members have been seen making Nazi salutes and the organisation has links with gangs of football hooligans. The story provides no proof, so, from that alone, we don’t know.

The paper says, “A spokesman for Glasgow City Council yesterday said ‘any application [for a street march] would be considered’. However, senior officials at the authority, which has the power to ban marches on police safety advice, would be keen to block any demonstration that is deemed likely to lead to violence.”

The story adds, “Some city leaders fear that the EDF could spark counter-demonstrations from Glasgow’s still highly mobilised left groups and from city Islamists.”

And that would be, we assume, what would spark the violence, not the march itself.

Let’s hear it for the animals!

Where is the animal-rights lobby when you need it?

It’s sure needed at the moment, because there’s a huge rise in the popularity of, and therefore the demand for, barbarically slaughtered food, which some deluded people seem to think they have to eat because a sky fairy told them to.

Many animal-rights activists – those, anyway, who object to our eating animals, no matter how humanely they’re slaughtered, as opposed objecting to testing cosmetics on animals, which is the real evil – are a tad touchy-feely in other respects too.

They’re therefore more likely to tread lightly with their convictions on ritual slaughter if the alternative is to upset religionists, particularly those of a religion practised chiefly by members of other ethnic groups.

So, when I see marches of animal-rights protestors objecting to halal and kosher slaughter, I’ll begin to eat the above words, which will first be humanely slaughtered, of course.

Clarifications

The organisation Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) have found it necessary to clarify their position on racism and other nasties.

They say in a special clarification page on their website:

SIOE has never had any physical opposition to its events in England until 11th September 2009, because it is universally recognised as being non-racist and opposing Nazism, Communism and the nastiest form of totalitarianism, Islam.

SIOE has argued for a free, open and honest debate about the place, if any, of Islam within Western democracies. However, when we have not been universally ignored by the media and politicians, we have been condemned, in the predictably hackneyed manner, with accusations of racism, bigotry etc.

As we said in our post of 10 September (below which a SIOE comment has appeared from one of their spokespeople):

The organisers, a group called Stop Islamification of Europe, say they always work with the police, they hate racism, but they don’t like Islamification. Sounds good to me, as long as they mean that.

A spokesman, Stephen Gash, is quoted as saying, “We mean what we say and we say what we mean regarding racism, because we don’t tolerate any kind of racism, but Islam itself is another matter.

“We are against any form of totalitarianism and basically we regard Islam as the nastiest form of totalitarianism ever devised.

“We fundamentally oppose any introduction of sharia law into England, the UK and the European Union.”

Which all seems rather reasonable.

How reasonable will be open to how the group conduct themselves in their dealings with the wider public – assuming the media give them a fair platform, of course.

As for some humanist and gay groups (and the dubious Unite Against Fascism, whose actions are questioned on our post linked to above), there are too many touchy-feely types who love to be politically correct, and a group such as SIOE are going to be branded racists, because, for some odd reason we can’t quite fathom, Islam is a race when it suits people to call it such, so to be wary of the religion that is Islam and campaign for it to be kept in its place is racism.

No, it’s not: it’s a gesture against Islamofascism, and, by extension, other forms of religiofascism.

And it has to be said some Muslims in the UK (and, I believe, more so in the USA) get on with their lives, don’t moan about the customs of the West, don’t have any desire for a worldwide ummah and even have the odd drink – albeit that it’s against their religion. I suspect, too, that the Danish cartoons have upset some more than others.

But secularists have complained for a long time about more than just (in the UK’s case) an established church and Christian privileges, notably since other “faiths” have begun to impinge on our lives. Islam, with its built-in misogyny and homophobia, is one such, and its excesses should be stamped on.

Let’s hope SIOE can gain the confidence of the public – and not just the Daily Mail readers and their ilk. If they are truly nonracist, it will shine through.

What's sauce for the goose . . .

It’s interesting that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain should decide that the British National party is “homophobic and sexist” and decide to work towards a ban on BNP members’ working in the public sector in professions such as teaching and the civil service.

Quite right, you might say. Detestable BNP. Sexist. Homophobic. Shouldn’t be allowed.

However, much as most people – including bloggers hereabouts – detest the party, should not the TUC, in fairness, be campaigning also against the churches and the mosques, and trying to prevent members of those organisations from working in the public-sector professions?

For the same reasons?

Just asking.

How Islam “respects women”

Two disturbing stories concerning Muslim penal codes have come our way in the past couple of days.

One concerns Indonesia – in particular, the Aceh province – and tells how legislators have passed a law allowing so-called adulterers to be stoned to death and gays to be caned and jailed.

Another looks more generally at Arab and Muslim laws as they affect women.

“I still shudder,” writes Nadia Hijab in Middle East Online, “when I remember the provisions of one Arab code that described the appropriate techniques to use with someone sentenced to crucifixion and how to position a person for flogging, using a chair. What made it worse was that this was a revised code passed in 1994 and not some holdover from medieval times. The Sudanese criminal code under which [journalist] Ms [Lubna] Hussein was charged [for wearing trousers] was passed in 1991.”

And these accounts come in a week in which a judge, Anthony Goldstaub QC, praised a man jailed for rape for his conversion to Islam, and said, “You have turned to Islam and this promises well for your future, particularly as you are now an adherent of a religion which respects women and self-discipline.” (My emphasis.)

Marriage for all

A Democrat Congressman in the USA, Jerry Nadler, wants to do away with the legislation that, at federal level, recognises marriage as only between male and female.

Pink News tells us that Nadler

has announced he will unveil a bill [today, Tuesday] to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). [. . .]

DOMA bans the federal government from treating same-sex relationships as marriages regardless of whether they are performed or recognised by a state. It also gives states the right not to recognise gay marriages performed in another jurisdiction.

Whether you see the idea that gays should ape the heterosexual world in wanting marriage is another argument, and some gays don’t. However, if it’s there for straights, fairness dictates that it should be available to gays, too.

Islamists net their victims

This makes for very disturbing reading. It’s an account in Britain’s Observer newspaper of how Islamist gangs in Iraq use the Internet to track down, torture and kill gays.

It’s a fairly recent phenomenon, the account tells us, since homosexuality was not illegal in Saddam Hussein’s time, and there was even a healthy gay scene in the 1960s and 1970s.

The recent killings “are brutal, with victims ritually tortured”, says the newspaper, adding:

Azhar al-Saeed’s son was one. “He didn’t follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son,” she said. “Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son’s purified blood and telling me where to find his body.” [. . .]

Hashim, another victim of violence by extremists, was attacked on Abu Nawas Street. Famous for its restaurants and bars, the street has become a symbol of the relative progress made in Baghdad. But it was where Hashim was set on by four men, had a finger cut off and was badly beaten. His assailants left a note warning that he had one month to marry and have “a traditional life” or die.

“Since that day I have not left my home. I’m too scared and don’t have money to run away,” Hashim said.

One of those responsible for the barbarity is 22-year-old Abu Hamizi, a computer graduate, who spends several hours a day searching Internet chatrooms.

“It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up,” he’s quoted as saying.

Michael’s black-or-white thinking

More binary thinking comes from that arch hater of gay people, the soon-to-be-no-longer Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali.

He’s always banging on about how Christianity is essential to our existence, and this time is no exception.

He’s quoted in Britain’s Telegraph as saying at his farewell service, “I believe that the Christian faith is necessary for the life of our country. We need to get away from the constant making of moral decisions by opinion poll. [. . .]

“It is obvious to many people that the weakening of family life is responsible for what we face on our streets, in our classrooms and in homes. It would be irresponsible for a Christian leader not to point this out.”

And here’s the black-or-white thinking: the question of family life. But he’s not talking just of family life: he’s talking of heterosexual family life, “normal” family life, family life as he believes God would want it. We know this from previous bleatings.

If you live in a “normal” family with heterosexual, opposite-sex parents, you’re OK; if not, you’re part of the problems that beset society. There is no in-between state, it seems. Yet people who are in “normal” families often do bad things; people who are not often do good things.

People who are in “unconventional” families are just as likely to be sensitive to their fellow human beings as are those in “normal” ones. And, of course, people who are not in families at all are as equally likely to be “good” or “bad”.

He just has a thing about homosexuality. He can’t see that family life can take several forms, and they don’t have to be a parent of each sex, officially married, preferably “in the sight of God”, with 2.4 kids.

In general he’s stating the obvious, because any kind of cohesion is necessary for society to function well, and a sense of belonging to a family group, a community, a city and moving outwards to a nation can strengthen this, as can a general feeling of being human and having respect for other humans, gay or straight, black or white – but you get my gist.

It doesn’t take a Christian to point that out.

But Nazir-Ali means your “normal” family, and he’s being disingenuous to blame a lack of what he perceives to be proper family life for the woes we find ourselves facing.

Religious faith can help some people to cohere, yes, because it brings people into groups with a shared interest, but it’s not necessary. The likes of Michael Nazir-Ali just drive wedges further into society by their attitudes towards sexuality. If Christianity is about loving your neighbour, it’s about being inclusive.

But let’s just try being human, shall we?

It was Madonna wot done it

So Madonna is guilty of the deaths of 15 people last Saturday because she had performed the Bulgarian leg of her Sticky and Sweet tour.

Is this the best Christians can come up with? Their loving god kills people because another person, entirely separate from the 15 unfortunates, does a concert said Christians don’t hold with?

Her performance was on 29 August, the day Orthodox Christians mark the day John the Baptist lost his head – literally. (Whenever I think of that I can’t help but hear Herodias say, “Salomé, dear, not in the fridge!”, but I digress.)

Anyway, as we blogged a while back, Christians weren’t too happy that Madge was coming to perform.

Now they’re patting themselves on their backs for showing prescience and are saying that her decision to perform in the country brought bad luck, resulting in a boating accident that killed the 15 people.

Duh!

PTT welcomes PM's apology to Alan Turing

Further to our blog entry earlier today, the Pink Triangle Trust has issued the following news release:

Gay Humanists welcome PM’s apology for Alan Turing

Britain’s only gay humanist charity has welcomed Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s apology for the treatment meted out to the wartime cryptologist and mathematician, Alan Turing.

The Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) called for an apology earlier this month, when its secretary, George Broadhead, said, “As a gay atheist himself, Alan Turing is a humanist hero and an apology for the appalling way he was treated for being gay is long overdue.”

Meanwhile, the academic John Graham-Cumming launched a Downing Street petition calling for an apology, and the number of signatories was soon in the tens of thousands. By 11 September, it was up to 31,000.

The Prime Minister wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph on 10 September, in which he said:

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated.

While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly.

Over the years, millions more lived in fear in conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.

This also formed the basis of his emailed response to those who had signed the petition.

“It’s certainly not before time that this apology has been issued,” said George Broadhead today. “It’s extremely sad that Turing was treated in such a manner back then, resulting in his suicide in 1954, but that it’s taken so long for the British government to issue an apology and to recognise the invaluable work Turing did in altering the possible course of the Second World War is inexcusable.

“At least Gordon Brown has gone some way towards putting that right, and, of course, we welcome his message. It’s particularly apt coming so close to the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.”

Meanwhile, Mike Foxwell, editor of G&LH, the PTT’s magazine, added: “Welcome though as they are, Gordon Brown’s words of regret are just that. The only act that the British state could perform is to give Alan Turing the posthumous knighthood he deserved in life for his service to Britain and the world in helping to ensure the defeat of Nazism.

“How very ironic that a man who helped ensure the demise of Nazism was meted out such fascistic treatment by his own country.”

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Turing’s untimely death, the Summer 2004 issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist carried a special three-article feature. Turing – mathematician, codebreaker, engineer, philosopher, and freethinker par excellence – is one of Britain’s most celebrated gay atheists.

Alan Turing campaign

The campaign was launched by John Graham-Cumming, a leading British computer expert and author of The Geek Atlas. To see Pink Triangle’s earlier coverage of this campaign, click here, here and here. To sign the petition, click here.

Turing gets a belated apology

I don’t know whether it was as a direct result of the Downing Street petition, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued an apology for the way the wartime mathematician code breaker Alan Turing was treated over his homosexuality.

The petition I’m thinking off – submitted by John Graham-Cumming – doesn’t expire till 20 January, but has clearly already had a bearing on Brown’s decision to speak out now, so successful has it been in collecting signatures (see also Brown’s Telegraph article here).

Among others demanding an apology was this blog’s owner, the Pink Triangle Trust, which said in a recent press release:

Notable among the campaign’s supporters is the well-known atheist and humanist Professor Richard Dawkins who said that an apology would “send a signal to the world which needs to be sent, and that Turing would still be alive today if it were not for the repressive, religion-influenced laws which drove him to despair.

The author of The God Delusion, who is due to present a forthcoming television programme for Channel 4 on Turing, said the impact of the mathematician’s war work could not be overstated. “Turing arguably made a greater contribution to defeating the Nazis than Eisenhower or Churchill. Thanks to Turing and his ‘Ultra’ colleagues at Bletchley Park, Allied generals in the field were consistently, over long periods of the war, privy to detailed German plans before the German generals had time to implement them.

“After the war, when Turing’s role was no longer top-secret, he should have been knighted and fêted as a saviour of his nation. Instead, this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius was destroyed, for a ‘crime’, committed in private, which harmed nobody,” he said. Professor Dawkins also called for a permanent financial endowment to support Bletchley Park, where Turing helped break the Nazi Enigma code.

The PTT secretary George Broadhead commented: “It is great to have such a prominent atheist and humanist as Richard Dawkins add his weight to the campaign and it is highly significant that he has identified religious-influenced laws as being to blame for Turing’s suicide. “As a gay atheist himself, Alan Turing is a humanist hero and an apology for the appalling way he was treated for being gay is long overdue.”

Brown says in the article:

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated.

While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly.

Over the years, millions more lived in fear in conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Turing’s untimely death, the Summer 2004 issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist carried a special three-article feature. Turing – mathematician, codebreaker, engineer, philosopher, and freethinker par excellence – is one of Britain’s most celebrated gay atheists.

Alan Turing campaign

The campaign was launched by John Graham-Cumming, a leading British computer expert and author of The Geek Atlas. To see Pink Triangle’s earlier coverage of this campaign, click here and here. To sign the petition, click here.

Let's do it the Taliban way

The Doncaster (Yorkshire, UK) mayor who tried to ban funding for gay Pride marches – saying he didn’t think public money should be used to allow gays and lesbians to parade through the town “advertising their sexuality” – seems to think we ought to look to the Taliban as fine exemplars of family values.

Peter Davies (pictured) is an English Democrat, elected in June, and has claimed that, under the Taliban, Afghanistan had an “ordered system of family life”.

Referring to recent child-abuse scandals in his town, he said, “The one thing that can be said about the Taliban is that they do have an ordered society of some sort and that they don’t have hundreds of cases of children under threat of abuse from violent parents, as we do in Doncaster.”

Whether public money should be handed out for any marches is a moot point, and can be argued elsewhere, but is he really sane when he points to the Taliban – who execute women for not dressing just so and who won’t let girls go to school – as a fine example of family values?

His defence of his remarks includes the claim that the Taliban are hideous but do have some family values, and he adds, “We in this country have created mayhem through lax social policies of disregard for marriage and the family and we have created mayhem in society.”

Well, the mayhem might not have happened if people of your mentality had not decreed long ago that being gay was in some way evil and wrong. By now, gay relationships might not even be called gay, might only rarely be referred to as same-sex, because they would be an accepted, normalised part of society and would attract no comment, no friction, no mayhem.

But you, Mr Davies, like Catholics and fundamentalist Christians, seem to think that one kind of relationship somehow “undermines” marriage, as if gays wanted to scrap marriage in favour of same-sex relationships.

Religion versus reality – yet again

The case of the Relate counsellor who didn’t fancy doing his paid job for same-sex couples but only for opposite-sex couples – because of some Christian ideas he has – is being heard at appeal today.

You can read all about it at the Christian Legal Centre’s website. I was alerted to this by an email I’m signed up to and it came under the heading “Urgent Prayer Request”.

Gary McFarlane worked for the former Marriage Guidance Council, now called Relate. See some background in our last post here. Briefly, he didn’t want to do sex therapy for same-sex couples, discussed it with his superiors and asked if an accommodation could be reached in the event of his having to do this and the whole thing led to his being fired. He is now appealing against an employment tribunal hearing that went against him.

The Christian Legal Centre dresses it up in the language of an imposition on religious freedom, of course, conveniently forgetting that, if everyone found a religious objection to some aspect of the job they do and employers meekly bowed to it, the world as we know it would collapse.

Anti-antis upping the ante

Demonstrators against the Islamification of the UK and wider Europe are planning a peaceful demo in London tomorrow, the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

But the group United Against Fascism (UAF) still want to stick their oar in and organise a counterdemonstration in the form of a vigil followed by a rally.

It was UAF who managed to halt a British National Party (BNP) news conference back in June, so concerned are they about freedom of speech.

Whatever you think about the BNP – and I and many more who value freedom don’t think much – they’re an official political party with representation in the European Parliament and several British local councils. If these useless prats in UAF really wanted to do damage to the BNP, they’d use debate.

The protest planned for tomorrow is described in the Independent (which manages to ignore hyphenation completely and talks of a “counter demonstration” as if a shop-fittings salesman were about to give a little show, but that’s by the bye).

The organisers, a group called Stop Islamification of Europe, say they always work with the police, they hate racism, but they don’t like Islamification. Sounds good to me, as long as they mean that.

A spokesman, Stephen Gash, is quoted as saying, “We mean what we say and we say what we mean regarding racism, because we don’t tolerate any kind of racism, but Islam itself is another matter.

“We are against any form of totalitarianism and basically we regard Islam as the nastiest form of totalitarianism ever devised.

“We fundamentally oppose any introduction of sharia law into England, the UK and the European Union.”

Which all seems rather reasonable. However, UAF say on their website:

Islamophobia – bigotry against Muslims – is as unacceptable as any other form of racism. [Er, racism? Is Islam a race? When did that happen?]

Its aim is to divide us by making scapegoats of one community, just as the Nazis did with the Jews in the 1930s.

Today they threaten the mosque, tomorrow it could be a synagogue, temple or church.

Today they threaten Muslims, tomorrow it could be Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, blacks, gays, travellers or Eastern Europeans.

And today you threaten those protesting against creeping Islamification, but tomorrow it could be people campaigning for freedom of speech in an area you don’t happen to like, so you’ll try to silence them.

Just as you did with Nick Griffin of the BNP. Being united against fascism but wanting to trample on freedom of speech is a rather contradictory stance that only woolly-minded so-called antifascists could think up.

Three-way Boris

An interesting exercise in comparing A with A and with A again and finding that they’re all rather different, and thus finding out just what mendacity goes to make up a politician, is carried out in the Guardian this week by Dave Hill on his blog.

We reported a few days ago how Boris (“Gosh!”) Johnson urged non-Muslims to (“Gosh!”) jolly well go into a mosque after fasting for a day during Ramadan and (“Gosh!”) jolly well find out what it was like to be a Muslim.

Not only has Anne Widdecombe (well-known poof hater but occasional talker of common sense) taken issue with him in the Daily Express, saying such an act would just be patronising tokenism, but Hill has taken three quotes from Johnson: one just after 7/7, one later, and one the other day when he became all mosque-friendly.

It makes for sobering reading. Well, it ought to be sobering reading for Mr (“Gosh!”) Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

One of the earliest quotes says, among other things, of Islam, “Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers . . .”

A later one – in April 2008, as May’s mayoral election day approached – has him saying, “The problem is people who wrench out of context quotes from the holy book of Islam, the Koran, and use it to inspire evil in men's hearts. That is a fact that few serious people would deny and we need to tackle the extremists.”

Now he wants us to be a Muslim for a day. Gosh!

Schools of scandal

Now there’s a thing. To replace several state-owned schools, the UK government set up academies – many of which are run by religions – in order to inject sponsorship money into the education system.

That, according to Francis Beckett, writing in the Guardian, was the excuse at the time. He writes:

If, say, Peter Vardy in the northeast, or Robert Edmiston in the Midlands were to loosen their bulging wallets, they would expect something in return. That something, in the case of Vardy and Edmiston, was the chance to instil in their academies the ferocious evangelical Christianity which these two gentlemen espouse.

But now, as we heard yesterday, the government has decided to drop the £2 million upfront payment that sponsors currently have to put up (in cash or in kind), which, anyway, is a small fraction of the cost of running each of these places (the taxpayer continues to fund the rest of the cost). So where’s the excuse for these academies gone to?

The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, spoke yesterday in interviews of how the institutions will take on the “ethos” of the sponsor and how wonderful this is all going to be. Need I say more?

NuLabour has moved a step further along the road of privatising schools, and pushing many of them into the hands of fundamentalist religions at the same time.

Barmy McSwami

The yogi who reckons yoga can “cure” homosexuality is moving to Scotland, according to Britain’s Telegraph.

Swami “Baba” Ramdev plans to transform a remote Scottish Island, Little Cumbrae, into a yoga and traditional teaching centre.

If he stuck to yoga instead of “diseases” that can be “cured” by it, it could be a good thing. As I said in a previous post, “Barmy swami”, yoga as a discipline for mind and body can be a good thing.

Fools and their money . . .

A mega-rich religious organisation that’s been investigated by the UK’s Charity Commission has been told it can’t build a massive new church in London.

It appealed against a decision to refuse planning permission, and has now lost that appeal.

The think tank Ekklesia tells us that Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) wanted to build the church on a site in Rainham, “a key regeneration area in the Thames Gateway”. Residents and their local council said they wanted community and business facilities in the area.

Ekklesia says of the organisation:

Kingsway is reputedly the largest church in Britain. It also preaches a message that wealth is a sign of divine blessing – something which most Christians argue directly contradicts the Gospel message and Jesus’s favouring of the poor. [. . .]

KICC’s leader, Matthew Ashimolowo, tells his congregation that “God wants you rich!” His church has assets of £23 million.

The church is reported to have made a profit of £4.9 million in the last 18 months and its wealth outstrips St Paul’s Cathedral’s foundation by a factor of three.

The money comes from worshippers, who pay a tenth of their annual salary, often by bank transfer. A large tax bill is avoided by KICC’s charitable status.

The charity behind Kingsway International Christian Centre was investigated by the Charity Commission of England and Wales between 2002 and 2005.

Fools and their money and all that . . .

Don’t be a prat, Boris!

“Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has urged non-Muslims to fast for a day during Ramadan and then to break their fast at a mosque to improve their understanding of Islam,” The Times (London) tells us this weekend.

Oh, yes? More ingratiating, appeasing nonsense from grubby politicians who are after the Muslim vote?

It’s so easy to like good old Boris Johnson. He has that floppy-haired geniality about him, and has committed one or two gaffes in his time as an MP (before he was Mayor of London) that tended to endear him to us rather than alienate him. A sort of likable oaf – that sort of image.

Like his predecessor, Ken Livingstone (who, like Johnson, has done stints on comedy panel shows such as Have I Got News For You), he often gets referred to by his first name. He’s Boris, not Johnson.

But we mustn’t forget that he’s a politician, and, to a large extent, politicians are grubby people who lie and cheat and will stop at nothing to push themselves up the career ladder. Bugger public service, unless it just happens to coincide with my ambitions and greed for power (and, of course, a generous, easy-to-abuse expenses package).

Boris – er, Johnson – thinks that, because some Muslims are trying to fit in with the host culture (no more than we’d expect), we ought to go to a mosque, learn more about their religion and even fast for a day during Ramadan.

But why the hell should we? If you’re studying religions, including Islam, that’s one thing, but why should we wish to dip our toe into this hideous belief system any more than, say, chomp on a thin biscuit and try to believe we’re eating bits of Jesus?

Johnson oozed, “There are valuable lessons people of all backgrounds can learn from Islam, such as the importance of community spirit, family ties, compassion and helping those less fortunate, all of which lie at the heart of the teachings of Ramadan.”

Last time I looked community spirit was thriving in other religions and among those of no religion, Mr Johnson, as were compassion and service to others.

The Times cites the Home Office Islamic Network, which

says that non-Muslims should consider fasting for a day and also asks non-Muslims to be sensitive when eating lunch near a Muslim who is fasting. In Personnel Today magazine, Rachel Krys, of the Employers’ Forum on Belief, writes: “Something as simple as not having biscuits at a team meeting would demonstrate sensitivity to what Muslim colleagues are doing.”

Bollocks, Ms Krys! If they don’t want to see people eat, they can decline to take part in the meeting, and suffer the consequences if their boss tells them they must be there.

What is it about bloody Islam that we should all be expected to bow down to it and observe its ways if there are Muslims close by? What comes next? Sharia courts? Oh, I was forgetting: we already have those.

Perhaps barbarically slaughtered meat forced on non-Muslims? Oh, I was forgetting: there’s already evidence of that – and, of course, it’s set to continue, along with equally barbaric slaughter to appease orthodox Jews.

So no, Mr Johnson and Ms Krys, we must not keep bowing down to demands that we accept their “faith”. There should be no place for “faith” in the public square, unless it’s in the form of reasoned discussion. We’ve seen what a mess it can make of the world.

What every Catholic should see . . .

If you want to see something that’s got right up the noses of the Catholic hierarchy, have a look at the video we’ve embedded below.

It’s the American TV show by the magicians/comedians Penn and Teller in their Pen & Teller: Bullshit! series. This one’s about the evils of the Vatican.

Predictably, it’s been lambasted by – well, by Catholics. All the more reason why this video should be given as much exposure online as possible.

Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, thinks “the Nazis couldn’t have done better”, and he took out an advertisement in Variety to call for the show to be cancelled. He wrote: “CBS/Showtime needs to send Penn & Teller a message and let them know that they have crossed the line for the last time. This should be their final season. We know that they’ve been told before to drop the Catholic bashing, and yet they persist. By doing so, Penn & Teller have effectively stuck their middle finger right in the eye of CBS.”

Donohue has also said, “I have never seen a more defamatory, obscene and vicious show on TV. And I mean about any religious or demographic group – not just Catholics. The lies about the Catholic Church, to say nothing of the vile language used by Penn Jillette, were positively astounding. Moreover, it never attempted to be comedic – from the very beginning it advertised the show as payback for 2,000 years of alleged crimes.”

Well, if the cap fits, Mr Donohue . . .

Interviewed in the show was the UK’s National Secular Society boss, Keith Porteous Wood, who says, “Penn & Teller said something that was long overdue – that the Vatican has a lot of answering to do for its corruption, greed and disgraceful attempts to cover up child abuse by its priests. Even worse than that is the damage to the environment caused through its irrational and dishonest opposition to contraception.

“This ‘teaching’ also adds to the AIDS pandemic and to the massively increasing poverty and starvation in the world. What is truly shocking is that governments and international organisations are unwilling to take on the Vatican, which uses its position as a half church half nation state to maximise its power while minimising its accountability.”

OK, with that out of the way, sit back and enjoy the show.

Religion is the problem

“Don’t pretend to believe [in God] and think of yourself as a good follower of God when in reality you’re living your life to what you need,” urges Amarin Chanthorn, writing in the Bemidji Pioneer. [Since this post appeared, it's become apparent that this link now demands an account log-in, so you may not be able to access the story.]

He makes the plea in an article that points out that religion has been responsible for more harm throughout history than disease or natural disaster.

It’s the hypocrisy of “believers” that gets up his nose, it seems. He can’t see how, if people truly believe in God, they can carry on their lives while others around them starve or are homeless.

If we, as an American society, really believe in God, there would be no wars, no famine, no greed because we would be peaceful society where we treat our neighbors like we treat our own. But we’re not: millions go hungry, crime is high, war is happening as we speak and greed is evident. It is man that has done this.

Which really makes the point that religion is bugger all to do with spirituality (however you want to interpret that) and good living (that is, living to bring good to others as well as oneself). It may think it is, but it isn’t.

Some religious people do good works, but so do atheists, and some religious people are thoroughly evil – instance many among the Catholic hierarchy, not to mention all the pervy priests who’ve assaulted young people over the years – while believing they’re so good.

Religion, then, has little or nothing to do with good. While it may be the impetus to a few who think they can’t do good without it, it is more apt to divide than produce concord. All the more reason to get it behind closed doors, and leave it there.

But, among those who have the power to do something about it, who’s going to make the first move?

Give us, this day, our daily shag

This could be a real passion killer.

Catholic couples – only the heterosexual ones, I suppose – are being urged to recite the “Prayer Before Making Love” before – well, before making love.

It’s supposed to purify the couple’s intentions so that a good shag should not be about hedonism – you know, actually enjoying it.

You can just imagine the pair of them on the sofa, eating each other’s face, just dying for it, breathing heavily, hands all over the place, deciding to go upstairs, then, “Oh, hang on a mo, darling, first we ought to say the ‘Prayer Before Making Love’. Pass the prayer book, will you?”

It’s obvious to anyone but a Catholic God botherer that hedonism is what it’s about, even though, as humans, we can and do often, but not always, add several layers of other meaning to the act.

As far as I can work out, natural selection is at work, because those who enjoy it tend to do it, and some of those couplings will lead to procreation (which is not to say that sex was somehow “meant” for procreation – that’s teleological thinking).

If there were no hedonism – i.e. no pursuit of pleasure – then most people wouldn’t be hoping for and seeking out a bit of rumpy-pumpy, whether it’s with their long-term partner or a one-night stand.

But I guess I’m preaching to the converted here.

The Daily Mail story cited above says of the 64-page book, produced by the Catholic Truth Society:

The prayer, which appears in the Prayer Book for Spouses, implores God “to place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes”.

It adds: “Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will.

“Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, for ever and ever. Now get yer kit off and let’s get down to it.”

Actually, I made that last bit up.

When science is seen as religiously not neutral

This is crazy. A school in Missouri has banned T-shirts that show an image depicting evolution because its board think it’s not neutral on religion.

What?

Just about anything that’s scientific could conceivably offend someone’s religious opinions. How is evolution anything to do with religion? It’s stating fact.

Are they not supposed to teach or otherwise depict history if they dare to talk of things that happened more than, say, 10,000 years ago? Isn’t that flying in the face of a religion that doesn’t believe in evolution?

Like most of the crap that comes from the mouths of Christians and others of the Deluded Herd, it defies logic.

And they call it education?

Turing – 12,000 and counting!

In my capacity as secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), I have issued a press release welcoming the support being given by members of the British public to the campaign to win an official apology for Alan Turing:

Gay Humanists welcome increasing support for Alan Turing campaign

The gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) has warmly welcomed the steadily increasing support to win an official apology for Alan Turing, the gay atheist code-breaking genius and father of the modern computer who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for being homosexual.

More than 12,000 people have now added their name to the on-line petition calling for the Government to recognise the “consequences of prejudice” that ended the life of the scientist aged just 41.

Notable among the campaign’s supporters is the well-known atheist and humanist Professor Richard Dawkins who said that an apology would “send a signal to the world which needs to be sent, and that Turing would still be alive today if it were not for the repressive, religion-influenced laws which drove him to despair.”

The author of The God Delusion, who is due to present a forthcoming television programme for Channel 4 on Turing, said the impact of the mathematician’s war work could not be overstated. “Turing arguably made a greater contribution to defeating the Nazis than Eisenhower or Churchill. Thanks to Turing and his ‘Ultra’ colleagues at Bletchley Park, Allied generals in the field were consistently, over long periods of the war, privy to detailed German plans before the German generals had time to implement them.

“After the war, when Turing’s role was no longer top-secret, he should have been knighted and fêted as a saviour of his nation. Instead, this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius was destroyed, for a ‘crime’, committed in private, which harmed nobody,” he said. Professor Dawkins also called for a permanent financial endowment to support Bletchley Park, where Turing helped break the Nazi Enigma code.

The PTT secretary George Broadhead commented: “It is great to have such a prominent atheist and humanist as Richard Dawkins add his weight to the campaign and it is highly significant that he has identified religious-influenced laws as being to blame for Turing's suicide. “As a gay atheist himself, Alan Turing is a humanist hero and an apology for the appalling way he was treated for being gay is long overdue.”

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Turing’s untimely death, the Summer 2004 issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist carried a special three-article feature. Turing – mathematician, codebreaker, engineer, philosopher, and freethinker par excellence – is one of Britain’s most celebrated gay atheists.

Alan Turing campaign

The campaign was launched by John Graham-Cumming, a leading British computer expert and author of The Geek Atlas. For the PTT’s earlier press release about the campaign, see this blog entry.

To sign the petition, click here.

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UPDATE: And it was soon closer to 18,000, as this story testifies.

Coffee with Jesus

God and Jesus with your coffee? What next?

As the number of bums on pews continues to diminish, Kirk God botherers in Scotland are taking their message to Starbucks and Costa outlets.

It’s an imposition. If you go into a coffee shop and pay whatever inflated price you pay for a cup of probably substandard coffee, you want to be able to sit and sip it with your friends or your book or newspaper. Do you then want an effective change in your unwritten contract with the coffee shop when it allows nutcases to come in and preach to you?

The message is simple: if you don’t want to be bothered by Jesus fans, avoid Starbucks and Costa and take your money elsewhere.