Strange bedfellows

What a bunch of strange bedfellows!

Rabid right-wing Christians, a rabid right-wing Tory and yer actual “militant atheists” (or whatever the favoured term is for secularists these days) have joined together in the name of freedom of speech.

Yesterday saw the launch of the Reform Section 5 campaign, which aims to increase the pressure on the UK’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, to amend the 1986 Public Order Act.

Section 5 of the Act outlaws “insulting words or behaviour”, whatever “insulting” means, since it can be interpreted in as many ways as there are adjectives. The human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell – not known for his love of religion – says in a press release: “Civil liberties campaigners, faith groups and secular organisations have joined forces to have the word ‘insulting’ removed from the legislation on the grounds that it restricts free speech and penalises campaigners, protesters and even preachers.

“The Reform Section 5 campaign is headlining with the slogan: ‘Feel free to insult me’, and asks the vital question: ‘Who should decide whether words, posters or ideas are insulting?’

“The campaign points out that the law rightly protects the public against discrimination, harassment, threats and violence – but that it has no legitimate role protecting us from having our feelings hurt.”

Couldn’t agree more. And I know that both Tatchell and Your Humble Blogger have said on many occasions that, once we start down the road of banning what people can say about us, we turn that on ourselves, and suddenly we find we can’t say things about them. That’s why it’s in all our interests to fight for the freedom to say what we like (usual caveats, of course, about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre when there isn’t one; about genuine defamation, which has to be decided in a court of law; and about deliberate incitement to violence).

So who is in the line-up?

Peter Tatchell. Doesn’t need much introduction: Aussie-born Britain-based longstanding campaigner for gay rights and human rights in general. Has got into some hairy scrapes on occasion, even getting beaten up by Robert Mugabe’s thugs, doing permanent damage to an eye.

Keith Wood is director of the National Secular Society, of which his civil partner Terry Sanderson is president.

There’s David Davis, a Tory with a few good points, who (and this isn’t one of them) called in 2003 for the return of the death penalty in the UK for the most serious murder cases.

However, in 2008 he forced a by-election in his constituency by resigning, because he wanted then to recontest the seat on a platform of widening the debate about the erosion of civil liberties by the then Labour government. (He got back in, unopposed, as it happened.)

In a sort of pre-echo of this current situation, Davis shared a platform with another unlikely bedfellow, the left-wing veteran former Labour MP Tony Benn, when the two took part in the launch of Big Brother Watch in 2010

There’s a rabidly Christian Tory of the right-wing persuasion called Edward Leigh, who’s a Catholic, and we know that, in any other circumstances, he might not actually say the likes of Tatchell and Wood should be silenced (well, he wouldn’t dare), but I suspect he would wish they were. Catholics, especially right-wing ones, don’t like the idea of gay marriage, for instance. And, if he follows the ideas of Herr Ratzinger, his fascistic leader, he will see all gay relationships as an intrinsic evil or whatever highfalutin, nonsensical twaddle the old twat spouted.

Leigh was a great Thatcher supporter, which speaks volumes. And he once got into a scrape because he relied on flawed Department for Transport stats to attack motorcyclists for tax evasion.

He’s also president of the ultra-conservative, antigay, pro-“family” Cornerstone Group within the Tory Party (the right wing within the right wing, you might say), with the motto “Faith, Flag and Family”. That says it all.

Now it has been known for left-wingers to refuse to share a platform with people they disagree with. Instance Ken Livingstone, failed London mayor hopeful this (and once London mayor himself), who pulled out of a BBC mayoral debate because the British National Party was involved.

I wonder if Livingstone would say Tatchell shouldn’t be involved with Leigh and his  “family values” cronies.

Just a thought, and mentioned because, on occasions (although I’m not accusing Tatchell and Wood of this), lefties have refused to get into bed with righties or those perceived to be racist or homophobic – when it suits them.

However, moving on . . .

Last, there’s Simon Calvert, who represents the Christian Institute, which has had some nutty things to say about gay matters in the past, including questions about freedom of speech, accusing gays of wanting to shut down freedom of speech when the opposite was the case.

This is what Tatchell’s press release quotes him as saying:

Despite my well-known disagreements with David Davis and the Christian Institute, in defence of free speech and the right to protest, we’ve sunk our differences and are working together to reform Section 5. Freedom of expression is so important. It transcends party politics and ideology.

It is commendable that David Davis and the Christian Institute are prepared to work with a gay left-wing Green atheist and secularist like me. We’re all putting the right to free speech before our personal politics and beliefs.

I have been a victim of Section 5. In 1994, I organised a small peaceful protest against the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, some of whose members had endorsed the killing of Jews, homosexuals, apostates and women who have sex outside of marriage. I displayed placards that factually documented the persecution of gay people by Islamist fanatics. I was arrested and charged under Section 5 with behaviour that was deemed insulting and likely to cause distress. I fought the charges and eventually won, but not before spending many hours in police cells and standing trial.

This experience convinced me that Section 5 is open to abuse by over-zealous police and prosecutors. That’s why I am supporting the Reform Section 5 campaign. The campaign brings together an unlikely alliance of people who would otherwise be political foes. Both my own Peter Tatchell Foundation and the National Secular Society have been traditionally at loggerheads with the Christian Institute over its opposition to gay equality and its defence of religious privilege. But on this issue we agree.

The Section 5 ban on insults is a menace to liberty. It has been abused to variously arrest or threaten with arrest people protesting non-violently against abortion and for gay equality and animal welfare. Other victims include Christian street preachers, critics of Scientology and even students making jokes.

In 2008, a teenager was given a court summons for holding a placard that denounced Scientology as a dangerous cult. Three years earlier, an Oxford student was arrested for jokingly suggesting that a police horse was gay. In both cases, even though the charges were later dropped, the victims had their freedom of expression infringed and they suffered public humiliation by the police.

Section 5 has been also used unjustly against Christian street preachers who have merely condemned homosexuality, without being abusive or threatening. Although what they said was homophobic and should be challenged, they should not have been criminalised. Dale McAlpine was arrested in 2010 for saying that gay sex is sinful. In my view, Dale is a homophobe but he should not have been prosecuted. On free speech grounds, I offered to testify in his defence.

Under Section 5, is it an offence for a person to use “insulting words or behaviour” in a way that is “likely” to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.” There is no requirement to prove that anyone has been harassed, alarmed or distressed. The mere likelihood is sufficient to secure a conviction. Moreover, an offence is committed regardless of the person’s intention. Innocently intended words, behaviours or signs can result in a criminal record. The police and the courts can decide if you or someone else might feel insulted.

When does an insult cease to be a legitimate (if bad mannered) expression of opinion and become a matter for arrest and prosecution? Much satirical comedy and many polemical critiques of religion are deemed insults by some people.

What constitutes an insult is a subjective judgement, open to widely different interpretations. For some ultra-sensitive people, what others regard as valid criticisms may cause them to feel insulted and distressed. Indeed, any controversial or dissenting viewpoint has the potential to upset someone and result in them – or the police – deciding that they feel insulted and distressed.

If we accept that insults resulting in likely alarm or distress should be a crime, we risk limiting free and open debate and criminalising dissenting opinions and alternative lifestyles that some people may find offensive and upsetting. The right to mock, ridicule and satirise ideas, opinions and institutions is put in jeopardy. Section 5 can, in theory, be used to criminalise almost any words, actions or images, if even just one person is likely to be alarmed or distressed by them.

There is no right to be not distressed or offended. Some of the most important ideas in history – such as those of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin – caused great offence and distress in their time.

Do we really need the police and the courts to criminalise insults? Should we not just accept that the risk of insult is a fair price to pay for living in a society which respects free speech?

The law rightly protects us against discrimination, harassment and incitement to violence. It should not be used to protect us from mere insults. It’s time to reform Section 5.

Well, I hope this unlikely coalition is successful in thwarting any attempt to erode our freedoms of speech and expression. But, as for their having “sunk our differences”, we know this is not the case: they’ve decided not to shout about them within the context of this campaign. That hardly amounts to sinking them.

No way have the likes of Leigh and the Christian Institute “sunk [their] differences” when it comes to gay marriage and other aspects of same-sex relationships. But it’s good PR to say they’ve sunk their differences, as long as we realise they’ll be back fighting against civil liberties once the Section 5 campaign is over.

Freedom to be dotty

A street preacher from Taunton in Devon, UK, has been found not guilty of verbally abusing a couple of gay guys after he told them they’d burn in hell.

“The couple claimed he deliberately targeted them after a previous altercation with them in 2010 when they walked past him holding hands led to [his] being spoken to by police,” says the Huffington Post.

“But the 47-year-old born-again Christian and former paratrooper denied abusing them, arguing that he was using his freedom of speech to air his beliefs in the centre of Taunton, Somerset, when he told the pair: ‘Even these two dear men whom I have met before, caught in the sin of homosexuality, can have the forgiveness of the sin, should they so repent.’”

I hate to be agreeing with the dotty Stephen Green, he of the tinpot Christian Vice – sorry, Voice – when he says this is a victory for freedom of speech, but it is.

Once we start telling people they can’t disagree with others and tell them they’re wrong, it won’t be long before our lords and masters begin to use precedent to deliver all kinds of draconian legislation concerning what we can and can’t say.

Let’s be happy that nutters can call us sinners if they wish. We then continue to be free to call them nutters. Along the way comes debate – as here, and in other outlets – and eventually people begin to think. It’s probably only because debate has been more freely entered into over the past few decades that gay people have gained the freedoms they have in the UK (and what it can do to benefit politicians, of course, who could take away our newfound freedoms when it suits them, but may find it harder now than, say, two decades ago, because there’s more public opinion to reverse).

The gay couple are thinking of going to the European Court of Human Rights, saying (according to the Huff): “We tried to stand up for our human and gay rights and we have been let down.”

Is that so? Well, it’s unfortunate that some nutjob decides to invoke hell and all that biblical bollocks, but there are millions of opinions out there and we can’t just stop people from voicing them. If he incited others to violence against the couple, that’s another thing. If he followed them down the street and wouldn’t stop haranguing them, that, too, is another thing. Seems he didn’t do that.

Political correctness and censorship

Oh, dear, it’s time for oversensitivity again. Mo (sorry, Mohammed, pbuh) is depicted with a pint of beer in his hand, so politically correct students get all pompous and silly about it.

I refer to the excellent cartoon series Jesus and Mo, which appears monthly in the Freethinker, has become at least two books, and is to be found online. Your humble blogger has an RSS feed, so he misses not one frame.

Those seeming to be offended are the students’ union at University College London (UCL), the first secular university in Britain.

“UCL was founded in 1826 as a secular alternative to the strictly religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge,” says the National Secular Society in the link above, “despite strong opposition from the Church of England. It was the first higher education institution in England to accept students of any race or religious or political belief and was christened by Thomas Arnold ‘that Godless institution in Gower Street’. It is therefore particularly important to support and defend the right to freedom of expression without religious interference and to make a clear distinction between illegal attacks on individuals because of their religion and ‘offence’ used as a means to stifle this freedom.”

Perhaps anyone choosing to be offended by this ought to see the entire series and engage with the often philosophical conversations that occur among Jesus, Mo(hammed) and the barmaid in the Cock & Bull (with occasional contributions from another Mo, Moses).

See also the Freethinker take on the story here, and sign the petition here.
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UPDATE: I'm glad to see that the students' union has now backed off. A victory for free speech!

Sense-of-humour bypass

Police say the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have been destroyed by a petrol bomb.

According to the BBC, “It comes a day after the publication named the Prophet Muhammad as its ‘editor-in-chief’ for its next issue.”

The magazine has been in trouble before over Islam – notably the question of the Danish cartoons. But it’s back to the question of freedom of speech, isn’t it, which we were discussing (well I was discussing) in the last post?

But that’s something that humourless Muslims don’t believe in. Oh, I’m sure they’re not all like that, but the ones that get the ear of the media clearly are, those who set themselves up as self-appointed “leaders” of the Muslim “community”.

So go to the BBC story and read it, so that efforts to gag are to some extent, at least, thwarted. Anyway, it has some rather amusing bits by way of explanation, such as:

“The edition of the paper which was being published on Wednesday was called Charia Hebdo – a play on the Islamic word sharia.

“The cover shows Muhammad saying: ‘100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter’. “Inside there is an editorial, attributed to the Prophet, and more cartoons – one showing the Prophet Muhammad with a clown's red nose.”

The story then adds: “Depiction of the Prophet is strictly prohibited in Islam.” Prohibited in Islam. Note the preposition here. It’s not prohibited outside Islam, last I heard.

What a bunch of winkers!

A picture of a religious figure winking is disrespectful – so disrespectful, in fact, that it’s been banned by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Jesus – not only winking but giving a thumbs-up sign – appeared on a mobile phone ad just before Easter this year. I’ve looked in vain for a picture, but the various news sites that carry the story – well, the ones I could be bothered to look at, anyway – have avoided using the pic, including the BBC and the Independent.

The BBC says that “the Phones 4U advertisement was ‘disrespectful’ to the Christian faith and must not be used again”. The inference we must all draw is that it’s disrespectful to use a figure that’s revered by millions of people, but if it’s Jesus it’s wrong and if it’s, say, John Lennon or Lady Gaga it’s OK.

Sorry, but I don’t see the difference. Either you’re hurting people’s feelings or you’re not.

Oh, I was forgetting. It’s disrespectful only if the figure concerned is part of a myth.

Anyway, I’d have thought a Jesus winking and giving a thumbs-up would please the Deluded Herd. It seems to be saying Christianity is cool.

But, then, the ASA has been known to be a pusillanimous bunch of twats before, as we saw on this blog nearly a year ago when it cosied up to the Catholic Church and banned an ad showing two male priests about to kiss – on the strength of a handful of complaints.

Why doesn’t it concentrate on ads for stuff that’s harmful, such as most fast foods, mobile phones aimed at kids (think of the radiation) and clothes made in sweatshops – to name but a few dodgy products?
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UPDATE: Since I wrote the above my helpful commenter Logicelf (see comments) has kindly sent me a link to a picture (for which thanks) on the Sky website:

Wilders acquitted

“Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been acquitted by a court in Amsterdam where he was on trial for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims,” reports the Muslim TV outlet Al Jazeera.

His statements, said the judge, were “rude and condescending”, but didn’t amount to criminal activity.

Wilders was hauled before the court for “inciting hatred”. So now, perhaps, it will be possible to speak objectively about religious ideologies without attracting the touchy-feely brigade.

Burning issue

Well, things have reached a pretty pass when you can’t burn a bit of rubbish in your back garden for fear that a left-leaning Sunday newspaper will grass on you in its zeal for political correctness.

It happened to British National Party candidate Sion Owens – who is standing in the Welsh Assembly elections next month – when the Observer shopped him, apparently, after receiving a leaked video of him burning a copy of the Koran.

Not many people – this blogger included – have much positive to say about the BNP, but it comes down to freedom of expression.

And, yes, no one can forget what happened in Afghanistan after Pastor Terry Jones of Florida presided over the burning of a copy of the Koran last month. However, the killings were not Jones’s fault, any more than similar atrocities – if they happen – will be the fault of this BNP thug.

Owens had the case against him dropped. The BNP says on its website that the police have realised that you can’t make a racial-hatred case – as it says they were doing to do – if Islam isn’t a race. True.

And what Owens did was provocative, and no doubt he’s chuffed to bits that his party is getting publicity out of his act. He’s probably chuffed to bits, too, that he’ll have achieved his fifteen minutes of notoriety.

And, no, I will not say he shouldn’t have done it, any more than I’d say Pastor Terry Jones shouldn’t have presided over a Koran-burning incident in March. All I’d say is: is there a real need to?

If you didn’t feel the need to do it in the first place, you couldn’t be accused of self-censorship by then not doing it, any more than I am guilty of self-censorship by not burning a copy of the Koran or a bible.

I just don’t see the need, think it would be futile and can’t be arsed to do it.

They were just holding hands, for goodness' sake!

It's good to see school students taking things into their own hands. If a school is to function properly, you don't want them doing it for flimsy reasons, but, when there's a principle at stake, they should take action in the form of mass disobedience. Otherwise, education is lacking in its remit to make students think, as distinct from merely imparting knowledge.

And that means to think for themselves, not allow the (in this case narrow and bigoted) views of teachers to get in the way.

So what was it all about? Well, a couple of girl students were holding hands, and were told to stop it. Anyone would think they'd been feeling each other up.

I recall at my school – too far back for me to care to remember – that I had my arm loosely over the shoulders of another boy, who had his arm round me in a similar casual manner. We were pals. We were told to part by some idiot who has only the flimsiest excuse that it was a few decades ago.

But what are they afraid of? If students were exposing themselves and engaging in face-swallowing snogs in lessons that would be one thing. Holding hands? Arms casually around each other?

So full marks to the students of St Benedict’s Catholic College in Colchester, Essex, England, for showing the teachers what they think of their prurient attitude.

British ad watchdog cosies up to Catholic Church

If ever you needed proof that those in any kind of authority are only too pleased to accommodate those of odd persuasions, you need look no further than Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority.

On the strength of just half a dozen complaints it has banned an ad showing two male priests about to kiss.

You couldn’t make it up.

Where to draw the line?

CatholicCulture.org tells us:

Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of Cebu, who retired on October 15 at the age of 79, said on the eve of his retirement that he was willing to go to prison rather than accept the provisions in proposed Philippine legislation that provide for widespread distribution of contraceptives, including abortifacients such as the IUD.

A man of his word, then.

“God forbid, but if they succeed I would be the first to go to jail because I will break the law,” Vidal is quoted as saying. “We’re not supposed to talk against it once it becomes a law, but I am wiling to go to jail because I will continue to talk about and go against it.”

He says the law does sanction those who speak out against it. I can’t say whether he’s technically right or wrong; but, of course, the law shouldn’t so sanction. He should be allowed his free speech, and the best way to counter it is by debate and, if necessary, ridicule, satire, lampoon. These are, or should be, the rights of a free society – but so, too, should this chap’s opinion on contraceptives, nutty though it is.

What he shouldn’t be allowed to do is somehow prevent a lawful act in an unlawful way. Mind you, what is unlawful there is anybody’s guess, if citizens really aren’t allowed even to speak about contraception.

If he seeks to dissuade people from using contraceptives merely by expressing an opinion, then he ought to be within his legal rights, and I say that as a supporter of contraception for anyone who needs it.

But we’ll always meet fuzzy lines. What if he spoke from the vantage point of a very powerful pulpit (I’m using that word in the widest metaphorical sense) and succeeded in stopping people from using contraceptives, possibly even putting their lives at risk? His church is powerful in some places, because it captures the minds of the faithful and threatens them with excommunication and tells them they’ll probably go to hell.

So maybe talking about it in his case would amount to more than the same act by some bloke in a café.

But, then, where do you draw the line?

So I’m vacillating. Hmm.

Oh, OK, then, send him to jail!

On second thoughts . . .

UK government shuts down pope petition rather than risk embarrassment – claim

Peter Tatchell

It seems that the UK’s toff leader and prime minister David Cameron has shut down a petition on the Downing Street website so the government won’t be embarrassed about Pope Ratzo’s visit in September.

That’s if Peter Tatchell is to be believed. And, since everything is verifiable, why not?

Tatchell is furious. More signatures would inevitably have been collected if the petition had run to September, as he says it was intended to do.

As you can see from the link above, the government’s response to the petition that many of us signed is just the usual whitewash.

Fancy a new look? Don’t let it go to your head!

If you fancy a fancy haircut in Iran, forget it. Mullets are out. So are ponytails and fancy quiffs and spiky hairdos.

All in the name of Islam, of course. Such hairstyles, you see, are decadent and Western and un-Islamic.

But you can have a bit of gel, it seems (don’t make it out of pork fat, though), and you don’t really have to wear a beard as a sign of religious devotion. Oh, well that’s OK, then.

The realities of self-censorship

So Rory Bremner, the excellent comedian and satirist, feels he can’t do Islam jokes. Surprise, surprise!

No doubt a whole host of others – comedians, artists, writers, musicians – feel the same.

And what an indictment on the state we find ourselves in when people who are doing genuinely creative work have to self-censor because of people who run their lives according to superstition and imaginary friends and sky fairies.

I don’t object if people feel they can organise their lives according to religious principles, but they shouldn’t expect the rest of us to believe in the same things.

How Catholics predict the future

Once again we get people criticising things before they’ve even seen them.

This time it’s notable nutjobs – sorry, Catholics – who are slamming Channel 4 for choosing Peter Tatchell, the gay human-rights campaigner, to present a documentary of Pope Ratzo’s visit to the UK in September.

It’s prompted Anne Widdecombe, the former Tory MP and Catholic convert, to say that it all goes to show just how anti-Catholic Britain is.

None of the critics of this programme have seen it, because it’s not been made yet.

What if it turns out to be entirely down-the-middle impartial? Will these people come out and say they were wrong? You can bet your sweet arse they won’t.

Dead man with beard threatens World Cup – shock, horror!

There’s more fury over the depiction of a chap from a few centuries ago who had a beard and is now dead.

And it’s even threatening the World Cup in South Africa, we learn from Christian Science Monitor, which doesn’t reproduce the cartoon by Zapiro, which appeared in the South African paper the Mail and Guardian.

“Coming just 20 days before South Africa hosts the World Cup soccer matches,” says the paper, “the Mohammad cartoon – which is much gentler than those published by Dutch and Danish newspapers or even by the American TV program South Park – has raised the spectre of a violent reaction in South Africa from extremist groups who see themselves as defenders of the Islamic faith. One alleged Al Qaeda leader, arrested in Iraq, claimed to have been planning attacks against Danish and Dutch fans because of cartoons of Mohammad printed in their countries.”

Muslims are of course jumping up and down, screaming, shouting, moaning, not realising that, if they just weren’t so damned precious about who draws their big man, people might not do it, except possibly for illustration purposes.

You’ll have heard, no doubt, about “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”* on Facebook, sparked by threats by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the US TV series South Park for daring to depict this beardy guy in a bear suit. It was bound to get Muslims twitching, of course, but it was done to tell the world that the West won’t be bludgeoned into self-censorship.

Let’s be straight: your humble blogger respects people’s right to hold religious beliefs, even if he doesn’t respect the beliefs themselves. And he doesn’t believe we should just ridicule a religious figure for the hell of it. But it has to be done if you’re making a point about freedom of expression.

Anyway, Mohammed is a historical figure, and is as much everyone’s to do with as they will as, say, Richard the Lionheart or Abraham Lincoln is. The fact that some people revere him as some sort of religious figure is nothing to do with us. To make us respect his image (not that anyone could know what he looked like, anyway) is to make us part Muslim. Christians don’t expect Muslims to revere Jesus in the same way, or pagans ditto the moon goddess.
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* Looks as if Facebook have removed this, so the link doesn't work – certainly when we last tried it, which was 10 August 2010.

Freethought in the most unexpected places

It may therefore come as a surprise to many people that there is a long and vibrant intellectual tradition of dissidence and freethinking going back to the Middle Ages.

You’re about to say, “So what?” when you read that this refers to Islam.

Read all about it here.

It’s not surprising that media are afraid to cross Islam, while they’re happy to knock Christianity, when Islam – far from its medieval stance on dissidence and freethinking – is so antithetical to freedom of speech, it being a hideous religion in which, in many Islamic countries, women are tenth-class citizens, homosexuals are executed, girls are not allowed to go to school, unbelief is punishable by death.

Try drawing a cartoon of their prophet fella, and see where that gets you!

Veteran campaigner Antony Grey has died

Many readers will know the name of Antony Grey (pictured), one of Britain’s first ever gay-rights campaigners. I’m sad to say he’s died. He was 82, and hadn’t been in good health for some time. He had leukaemia and died at King Edward VII Hospital in London last Friday.

Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright (his birth name) was instrumental in getting the government of the day to push through the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which led to the first major breakthrough in gay equality. Gays were not, of course, equal, but the Act did decriminalize sexual activity between two consenting adults (over 21) in private. It was a step along the way.

Grey began campaigning for sexual equality in 1968, as you can read in this Pink News article.

It was then that he joined the Homosexual Law Reform Society, later joining and becoming secretary of the Albany Trust, a charity set up to help gay men who had developed psychological problems after being persecuted.

Grey also wrote several books, including Quest for Justice: Towards Homosexual Emancipation, Speaking of Sex and Speaking Out: Sex, Law, Politics and Society.

Grey had lived with his partner, Eric Thompson, for 50 years, even during the years when it was considered dangerous for a male couple to share a house.

Grey’s death was the “end of an era”, says Thompson, who recalls in the Pink News article how things had changed from the early 1960s. “One night, when we were living in Hampstead, there was an almighty crash, as though the chimney had fallen down. A coach had crashed into several houses.

“But the first thing we did was not to call the police – it was to make up a spare bed, because you knew that when the police came round they would have been far more interested in our sleeping arrangements than the crash.”

“I don’t think the younger generation realises how things were in those days.”

My fellow blogger George Broadhead has told us that he, too, mourns death of Antony Grey, whom he got to know well when the former was secretary of the Gay Humanist Group (GHG) now called the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.

“Antony joined GHG in October 1979 shortly after it was founded and remained a staunch supporter until the controversy over an article published in the Autumn 2005 issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist, magazine to which he was a contributor. This article was perceived by some as racist, but Antony disagreed and sadly resigned his GALHA membership. He was always a staunch defender of freedom of expression and against what he considered political correctness.”

Indeed, Grey wrote a fascinating article on the subject of freedom of expression for Gay & Lesbian Humanist when it became an online publication in late 2008. Here is the standfirst, to give you a taste, and you can click on the link above to get to the article itself:

We live in sombre times. On the pretext of protecting us from terrorism, an obviously frightened and increasingly authoritarian UK government is steadily stripping away traditional safeguards of individual liberty and freedom of expression, which at least the older among us had hitherto taken for granted as part of the weft and warp of Britishness. Antony Grey has been looking at our freedoms – and lack of them.

Trust slams Tory leader over religious schools

The gay Humanist charity and this blog’s parent organisation, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), has condemned the UK’s Conservatives’ successful blocking of Labour’s plans to introduce compulsory sex education in schools. It has also condemned Conservative support for religious schools teaching it “in a way that’s consistent with their beliefs”, meaning that, for instance, Catholic Schools can tell kids how evil all gays are.

In an interview with the Catholic Herald, Tory leader David Cameron said, “I do think that sex and relationship education is an important part of learning about responsibility. But schools should be allowed to teach it in a way that’s consistent with their beliefs, and parents should be free to decide whether or not their children should take part in these lessons.”

Commenting on this revelation, the PTT’s secretary George Broadhead said, “Mr Cameron has claimed to be supportive of gay and lesbian rights, but doesn’t he realise that, if faith schools are permitted to teach that same-sex sexual practices are morally wrong, it will do irreparable harm to their lesbian and gay pupils and cause an increase in bullying?

“Faith schools now make up one-third of the total number and all three main political parties intend to expand them further. Unsurprisingly, a Stonewall survey revealed that a higher proportion of anti-gay bullying occurs in these schools than in others. How is this going to be tackled if such schools are permitted to teach pupils that lesbian and gay sexual relationships are sinful?

“Faith issues dominate American election campaigns and this is the latest indication of the growing use of this style of campaigning by the Conservatives.”

As a Humanist charity, the PTT is also opposed to Cameron’s view on assisted suicide which he expressed in the same interview.

Playing into the hands of racists

Bloody nannies in authority again, thinking they know better than the rest of us.

Nitwits in Dudley in the English West Midlands have banned an acclaimed play that features homophobia and racism because – well, because it features homophobia and racism.

So it seems such matters can’t be discussed now, because oversensitive prats think they know better. The issues raised by the play are not “suitable for a school and community setting for the venue”, say the nannies, even though the play seeks to show up these things.

Chances are they’re philistines who know bugger all about theatre. But who am I to say? Maybe they’re not philistines – but are acting like idiots. Whatever. It just seems to be so much more of the nanny state we’re living in, where those in authority would rather do a national group hug than tackle issues, lest some sensitive souls be offended.

The fact is that it’s designed to show up the very concerns it raises. How do you do that with drama without depicting what it is you’re highlighting? Do you have a play about the KKK without a pointy hood, or a play about gangsters without gangsters?

The play is Moonfleece. It’s the latest offering from the controversial Philip Ridley and was scheduled to be staged in the town last night, two days before a rally by the right-wing group the English Defence League was due to take place in the same town.

The Independent tells us:

Last week, the producer, Will Young, received a message from the theatre informing him that, after lengthy discussions, it had decided not to stage the play for fear of offending the local community. Yesterday, Dudley council said: “The booking was cancelled as the school did not feel some of the issues raised within the play were suitable for a school and community setting.”

Moonfleece is about a young, right-wing activist who finds himself reassessing his beliefs as the brutality of the new-look British National Party (BNP) is exposed. It has a multicultural cast. It’s not a racist play. It's a play about racism. They are two different things.

The play’s director, David Mercatali, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the decision, especially since the play had sparked interesting reactions in the areas it had already shown, which include Bradford and the Aston area of Birmingham.

Will Young, says the Indie, said they had deliberately planned a tour that took in areas where the BNP was popular – Bradford, Leicester, Birmingham, Doncaster and Dudley – before returning to London in April for stints at the Riverside Studios and Greenwich Theatre. “Some residents in Dudley recently began a protest aimed at the building of a mosque, which was finally refused planning permission,” says the paper.

The point being? So some anti-Islam people get twitchy about a mosque, and that’s reason, it seems, for banning a play about racism (not that being anti-Islamic is racist, even if some racist thugs do use it as an excuse to be racist, but we can’t legislate for such attitudes).

Banning this performance just plays into the hands of the monsters it's trying to show up.

Young is further quoted as saying, “It’s about homophobia and racism and he [Ridley] didn’t want it to play in a theatre made up of your usual theatregoers, who are relatively removed from the issues to which the play relates. So we went looking for areas with people who are not big theatre audiences.”

Yup. Sounds sound to me.

Crimes and thought crimes

The conviction and £1,000 fine imposed on a homophobic Christian street preacher in Glasgow has been condemned by the human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell as “an attack on free speech and a heavy-handed, excessive response to homophobia”.

Shawn Holes, an American Baptist evangelist touring Britain, was fined £1,000 for telling passers-by in Glasgow city centre, “Homosexuals are deserving of the wrath of God – and so are all other sinners – and they are going to a place called hell.”

In court, he admitted breaching the peace on 18 March by “uttering homophobic remarks” that were “aggravated by religious prejudice”.

“Shawn Holes is obviously homophobic and should not be insulting people with his anti-gay tirades. He should be challenged and people should protest against his intolerance,” said Tatchell.

“However, in a democratic, free society it is wrong to prosecute him. Criminalisation is not appropriate. The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive.

“Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality. Only incitements to violence should be illegal.

“Mr Holes’s £1,000 fine is totally disproportionate. Even people who commit robberies and violent assaults sometimes get off with lighter penalties. This prosecution was heavy-handed and an inappropriate use of the law.

“If I had known about this prosecution in advance, I would have gone to court to defend Mr Holes’s right to freedom of expression and to urge that the charges against him be dropped.

“Even though I strongly disagree with his views on homosexuality, if he had decided to appeal against either the conviction or the sentence, I would have supported him.

“I urge the police and prosecuting authorities to concentrate on tackling serious homophobic hate crimes, instead of wasting public money on petty, distasteful homophobic ranters,” said Mr Tatchell.

And your humble blogger is inclined to agree. What the “breach of the peace” amounted to other than the utterance of the words, I don’t know. But I suspect it was nothing more than uttering the words, not, say, causing an affray or seriously frightening the horses.

New legislation introduced last week increased the penalties available for people convicted of “hate crimes” against groups such as gay and disabled people to the same level as race crimes. The question is: should this be so? Or should there be just one breach-of-the-peace law, irrespective of the subject being spoken about when the peace was breached – assuming it was breached at all in this case?

It’s not an easy one, and I daresay strong cases could be made for both arguments.

I tend to think that the proof of whether a crime has been committed ought to rest on what actually happened – e.g. did he cause people to do violence, or actually cause a rumpus that scared the hell out of passers-by, or disrupt someone else’s rightful activity? – and not what a person was talking about.

Would he have had to suffer this penalty if he was on a soapbox in Hyde Park, where people are used to seeing ranters and ravers? What if he were in a meeting hall expressing those views? Or in a pulpit, speaking from the conviction of his “faith”, nonsensical though that is?

When is a word crime a thought crime?