Could the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill possibly be worse than we thought?

We’ve talked a lot about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill proposed in Uganda.

Have a look at this YouTube video embedded below. You’ll see that it really is easy to get yourself killed – i.e. executed – in Uganda. You don’t even have to be gay; you don’t have to have ever had gay sex.

The short video explains succinctly but effectively just how you can become a serial offender – without having sex at all. It also defines people in authority as, among others, someone in a religious capacity.

So, without having sex and by easily stacking up “repeat offences”, you can face death at the behest of some twat who believes in sky fairies.

It’s a lot more evil than we were led to believe. And we were led to believe it was pretty damned evil to begin with.

I don’t believe in capital punishment, but I think I’d make an exception in the case of the author of this pernicious Bill, David Bahati MP.
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Related links:
Kill Bill
No breakfast for Bahati Boy
The inconvenience of human rights
Uganda evil: silence . . .
Archbishop of York speaks out . . . but what took him so long?

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.

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.

Pink religion, anyone?

There’s been talk lately about a special part of the police in the UK set up to accommodate yet another religion – this time pagans.

An interesting editorial in Pink News asks why gays shouldn’t set up their own religion, and get special holidays. Seems like a good idea.

What sticks in the craw, though, about this amusing article is that for some reason best known to themselves Pink News have put a disclaimer under it:

Just to be clear, this article is obviously a joke. It provides soome [sic] light relief to PinkNews.co.uk readers ahead of the weekend. The author is not mocking religion. It doesn't represent the views of PinkNews.co.uk.

Is it not up to us, the readers, to decide whether the article is a joke or not? And what if the author were mocking religion? Would that mean Pink News would go all politically correct and refuse to use the article? This disclaimer suggests that it would.

Stonewall revisited

“[A]lmost every Fortune 500 company has policy that covers LGBT people. And I know having worked for both Brown University and the State of Rhode Island that health care and insurance benefits are available to the partners of gay people.

But it isn’t enough. Until we all have the same rights the fight is never over.”

So writes Truthspew, one of our frequent commenters, on his blog, Spewing the Truth in the Face of Lies, in an interesting piece on the Stonewall Riots.

Quite right, too.

And of course you can read about the Stonewall Riots in our sister publication, the free, online Gay & Lesbian Humanist.

Truthspew keeps a tidy blog. He’s there in our sidebar. Drop in from time to time.

Stonewall Riots, 1969

On 27 June 1969 – 40 years ago today – New York City police raided the Stonewall bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. The gay men inside didn’t meekly comply, but fought back.

In "Gay Liberation", in the current issue of G&LH, John Lauritsen remembers a seminal moment in gay and social history.

Meanwhile, in "Gossip from Across the Pond", Warren Allen Smith recounts some little-known facts about the Riots, and, in "Out of Print", looks back at the publication in 2004 of Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution.

Head case

Oh, dear! Yet another scheme for wasting taxpayers’ dosh in order to appease the Deluded Herd.

Scientists, we’re told in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, are developing bulletproof turbans so that Sikhs can work as certain kinds of cop.

“Sikhs are currently barred from becoming firearms or riot police because their religion does not allow them to remove their turbans to put on protective headgear,” says the Telegraph.

“I think there needs to be a recognition from the Home Office that would allow Sikh officers to carry out these roles,” bleats Inspector Gian Singh Chahal, of Kent Police, who is also and vice-chair of the British Police Sikh Association.

No, Mr Chahal, there doesn’t. You can carry out the roles if you wear the proper headgear. Why should there be more money spent making Kevlar head rags just to satisfy some superstition?

Freedom of speech? In the West? Don't make me laugh!

Incursions into our freedom of speech and expression don’t happen all at once. They come in ones, sometimes in bits, building into a whole. They come at irregular intervals. Sometimes they’re overshadowed by other news that the media deem more important. Sometimes they're spun by shoddy, dishonest politicians of the NuLabour variety as something that is good for us.

But suddenly we realise that they're building up into a veritable Chieftain tank of oppression that surges through the streets of our culture, mowing down and crushing all that stands before it.

So I make no apologies for bringing your attention to an article in Australia’s Brisbane Times from a little while ago – 16 April – that brings a few of them together.

We often think we’re so, so free in the West to say what we like (with the usual caveats concerning defamation and shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre when there isn’t a wisp of smoke in sight).

But this article reminds us of such notorious infringements as the banning of the Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders from the UK and the police harassment of and threats against of a 15-year-old youth who dared to hold up a sign in London saying Scientology was a dangerous cult.

The article also cites Brigitte Bardot, who was

convicted last June of “inciting religious hatred” for a letter she wrote in 2006 to the then interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals.

If I, on a blog such as this, can say I have no problem with her criticising homosexuals, surely Muslims and those who seek to protect their overrated sensitivities can find it in themselves to accept criticism of religion.

Islam deserves to be criticised, and that’s why it gets it in the neck so often on blogs such as this one. Christianity, too, deserves to be criticised when it’s being particularly shitty, as it often is when wielded by Catholics and fundies and hate-filled Anglican bishops.

And Bardot’s conviction was for writing a letter to Sarkozy, not marching down the street baying for the blood of Muslims and gays and inciting people to do violence to them.

The article then talks of the UN resolution against “defaming” religion:

Emblematic of the assault is the effort to pass an international ban on religious defamation, supported by the United Nations General Assembly President, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. Brockmann is a suspended Roman Catholic priest who served as Nicaragua’s foreign minister in the 1980s under the Sandinista regime, the socialist government that had a penchant for crushing civil liberties.

The UN resolution is backed by countries such as Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive nations when it comes to the free exercise of religion. Blasphemers there are frequently executed. Most recently, the Government arrested the author Hamoud Bin Saleh simply for writing about his conversion to Christianity.

Islam again, of course. It’s a religion that still has its zits and its adolescent angst, and ought to grow up (or preferably just disappear).

And there’s more:

In May 2008, Dutch prosecutors arrested the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot over a cartoon that caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who meet at an anti-gay rally and want to marry.

Last September, Italian prosecutors investigated the comedian Sabina Guzzanti for joking about Pope Benedict XVI: “In 20 years, [he] will be dead and will end up in hell, tormented by queer demons, and very active ones.”

Just what has got into the West and its authorities? Why is the Western world becoming so Orwellian?

It’s disturbing, and one day there will be bloodshed. Those who stamp on freedom of expression may just find themselves being denied one of their own freedoms – the freedom to live.

It’s not a scenario one wishes to see. But there’ll come a breaking point, and the first to suffer could well be those whom Draconian laws against “defaming” religion and against breaking the rules of political correctness seek to protect: religionists.

They will be the scapegoats, even if they’re innocent of any lawmaking. If Islam, for instance, is seen as the problem, then anyone with a dark skin will be targeted by the thugs of the far Right.

The fact that many who dislike the tenets of Islam are also racist will not help. Far too often even now, those who justifiably criticise Islam for its oppression of women, its treatment of homosexuals and the tendency of so many of its blind followers to moan and whinge and whine at every opportunity are accused of racism (usually by the likes of Islamophobiawatch, the risible, pathetic excuse for a blog – a blog that is too afraid to allow readers to leave comments).

But I digress – though only to draw your attention to one particularly obnoxious blog that seems to be campaigning against freedom of speech in the West.

Have a gander at the Brisbane Times article (which is reproduced from the Washington Post), written by Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

Under the headline In turning against free speech, Western nations turn against their citizens, it makes sobering reading.

Cop out

The Norfolk policeman who bombarded colleagues with Christian emails concerning sexuality has now been fired.

PC Graham Cogman just couldn’t get used to the fact that some people are gay.

See the background here.

He got his comeuppance at a disciplinary tribunal.

Cop who sought a cop-out

A police officer who, according to the rabidly homophobic Christian Institute, has been “discriminated against for traditional beliefs” is due to have his case heard this week at a disciplinary tribunal.

PC Graham Cogman, who’s 49 and comes from North Norfolk, has been a copper for about 15 years.

But, says the CI of Cogman’s intention to take his employers to an employment tribunal on the issue:

PC Cogman is taking the unprecedented action as a serving policeman after a series of complaints and investigations suggesting he is “homophobic” – something he strenuously denies. He says that the “over the top” promotion of homosexual rights within Norfolk Police makes being a Christian policeman, or an officer with traditional family values, extremely difficult, unless a person is prepared to ignore his or her conscience.

It then goes on to tell Cogman’s story:

In 2006, PC Cogman was working at the force’s Great Yarmouth headquarters when gay liaison officers put “politically correct” pressure on all colleagues to wear a pink ribbon supporting Gay History Month. PC Cogman claims police stations were flooded with homosexual literature, posters, including the promotion of a gay quiz night in pubs. As a member of the Police force, an organisation which he feels is charged with upholding traditional standards of freedom of speech and association, he emailed colleagues with an alternative view on the subject, stating his Christian views and reminding them that Christians, and other members of society, whom they serve as officers, believed homosexual acts were wrong in God’s eyes.

PC Cogman was subsequently accused of failing to be tolerant and banned from using the force’s internal email system. When the event re-occurred 12 months later, PC Cogman again protested, especially when the promoters wanted to use the Rainbow Symbol, which has special significance for many Christians. The officer was summoned to a full disciplinary hearing. On the strong advice of lawyers, and because he was told he would lose his job otherwise, he pleaded guilty to a breach of the police code of practice and was fined the maximum, £1,200. When PC Cogman then added a Christian text to his computer screen saver, he was questioned again and in April 2008, he was interviewed about his faith and beliefs. He now faces a further full disciplinary hearing and is in fear of losing his job.

Perhaps no one should be forced to wear pink ribbons, but he didn’t have to do the cyber-preaching to his colleagues. Then we get, “As a member of the Police force, an organisation which he feels is charged with upholding traditional standards of freedom of speech and association . . .” What does he mean? That only “traditional” ideas should be talked about? Just what are “traditional” standards of freedom of speech? His standards? Just his conservative Christian standards? Are only “traditional” standards of freedom of speech acceptable within the police force?

He sent homophobic emails out. The rules say no homophobia.

The Daily Telegraph said back in July:

PC Cogman, a father of two, said reconciling his religious beliefs with his job was becoming more difficult because the force’s stance on homosexuality was at odds with his religious views.

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult,” he said.

Well, things change. Gays have fought long and hard to be recognised as equal to straights, and people in positions of authority should be ready to deal with that. Religion, after all, is something that can be ignored. One’s sexuality isn’t.

Taking the mickey. Why not?

Why the hell can’t we take the piss out of Muslims? We take the piss out of Christians and Jews. We take the piss out of Jedi Knights and Scientology. Why do we have to treat Muslims with kid gloves?

After all, they can be hilarious. Just draw a cartoon of their marauding prophet, and the world is set alight. Sometimes literally, in parts.

Threaten to publish a book, and publishers shy away from it, having taken advice from “scholars”.

Print a picture of a little doggy on a postcard that’s meant to help the police, and Muslims are up in arms.

Make a film about their “holy book” and they threaten consequences if it’s not taken off YouTube.

Try venturing into a “Muslim area” in Birmingham, and you could just have a hilarious time being beaten up – or at least being told to get lost by a policeman wannabe who, in this case, happens to be Muslim.

There are Muslim comedians who take the piss out of all sorts of things – including Muslims. It’s called comedy. There’s this thing called irony. There’s satire. Only a bone-headed primitive religion would object.

Often, Muslims – the more enlightened ones, and there are many – don’t object. Often, it’s left to the indigenous politicians and civil servants and assorted do-gooders to prevent you from “going there”.

Well, there’s an interesting piece in the Independent on Sunday about it, which is worth reading. In it, David Lister argues, “The irony is that in [making Muslims a comedy no-go area], they really are insulting Muslims, the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Britain who are perfectly capable of laughing at themselves, and would resent the patronising protection supposedly offered them by the comedy police.”

He was commenting on the fact that the comedian Harry Enfield had been told to leave alone a Muslim hoody character he had developed.

The production company Tiger Aspect, which makes Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s show Harry and Paul, confirmed that, “Obviously, it is a sensitive area. It [Enfield’s character] never made it further than the page. This was a decision taken collectively by key members of the production team.”

Back in April, I seem to remember, another comedian and writer, Ben Elton, was complaining of how Islam has become a no-go zone for comedians.

Quite simply, no religion should be exempt. The more they complain about it, the more the urine should be extracted, in huge quantities. If they shut up, they’ll take their share of piss-take with the rest – and not just religions, but politicians, celebs and just about anyone or anything in the public eye.

Good comedy helps us to see things in a different light. That makes it an art form. Anything that takes the piss for the sake of being cruel is not really comedy. Our laughter, if indeed it’s generated from such material, is not healthy laughter. It’s smutty laughter.

However, it shouldn’t be censored. In the marketplace of public performance, there is a mechanism. Crap comedy can be ridiculed by those whose job it is to do that: critics and other commentators.

Anyway, if thine eye offend thee, pluck at the off switch.

BJ KO's PC PC

So, London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, has achieved what others failed to – the removal of Sir Ian Blair.

Earlier this afternoon, the UK’s most senior police officer – who has been the Metropolitan Police commissioner since 2005 – announced his resignation, despite making it known that he would have liked to continue in the post until his contract expired in 2010.

Blair claimed that his decision had been forced upon him in a “pleasant but determined” way by the mayor. Johnson wished to see a “change of leadership. Without the mayor's backing I do not think I can continue in the job.”

Since becoming commissioner, Blair has been enmired in one controversy after another, and became known as the “PC PC” among his critics – in 2002, as deputy commissioner of the Met, he had called for more female, ethnic-minority and gay recruits. In 2005, the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes (pictured), the Brazilian man shot by police at Stockwell Tube station, caused much public outrage and heated calls for his resignation.

Today, Brian Paddick, the former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner (and at one time Britain’s most high-ranking out gay police officer), said it was a sad day for policing. A little odd, perhaps, given that, in 2006, he threatened to sue the Met after they denied his claims that Blair’s office knew that de Menezes was the wrong man just six hours after the shooting.

At the time, Paddick was reported to be furious at being made the fall guy and hung out to dry by the Met following the testimony he gave on Blair to the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission). Paddick said then that it sounded as if his colleagues were accusing him of lying.

The cost of religion (whether we want it or not)

How much money do you think would be saved for the public purse if religion were to disappear from the face of the planet? Quite a bit, probably.

Not only do we have government servants and bits of government departments devoted to our nation's relationship with the superstitious by its insistence on having an "established" church, and not only are religious organisations able to dodge taxes by qualifying for charitable status, just for being religious organisations, but public bodies feel they have to have special training lest they tread on the toes of the deluded.

The latest nonsense culminates in a forum in Leicester today, which the This Is Derbyshire website tells us is being organised by East Midlands Ambulance Service "to address the issues surrounding religious beliefs and medical care".

Last time I looked, we were all pretty much the same. In most cases, two of everything down the outside and one of everything down the middle. The story continues:

Members of different faiths have been invited to the first NHS Religion and Belief Summit to take part in a debate and watch life-saving demonstrations.

A spokesman for the service said faith could influence the emergency care that patients receive.

He said: "For example, male paramedics treating female patients may cause anxiety for some, or paramedics entering places of worship with their shoes on may cause offence."

"Just keep choking in that smoke-filled room, mate. Be with you as soon as I can get out of these shoes. God! These Gucci high-heeled wellies are a bugger to get off [puff! pant!], especially when I've got these thick socks on. Be with you in a mo. Don't die yet. Are these socks OK? I mean, they won't offend, will they? They're a bit sweaty."

I'm reminded of an earlier story we carried about how police dogs may have to wear little bootees before entering a place where Muslims might be offended – because dogs are considered haram by Muslims – no matter what the emergency, presumably. Woe betide the poor cop who uses common sense and puts life or prevention of crime before religion and decides there's no time to fit Fido's fancy footwear. He'll be hauled up before a committee of this or that and made to answer for "offending Muslims". Perhaps he'll think losing the trail is the better option in today's PC age.

"Control, this is Papa Charlie Nine. Suspect seen dashing into a mosque. Will pursue as soon as dog's bootees are in position. Over."

"Control to Papa Charlie Nine. If it's a mosque, you'll need bootees on the dog but no footware on you. Are your socks clean? Over."

"Roger that, control. Oh, bugger! He's disappeared into that synagogue over the road now. Where did I put the yarmulkes?"

"Control to Papa Charlie Nine. You can't put a yarmulke on the dog. That would be silly. Over."

Undercover Mosque: the Return

This should be a nice one in the eye for the PC PCs at West Midlands Police, who tried to sue Channel 4 recently for its "Undercover Mosque" episode in its Dispatches series. Channel 4 beat off the force's attempts to sue it, and brought a libel case and a grovelling apology. (We carried several posts mentioning this programme; you can get to them here, which will take you to all posts that mention it, including this one and any future ones.)

The Guardian tells us:

It has now emerged that the same Hardcash production team have revisited the subject to "see whether extremist beliefs continue to be promoted in certain key British Muslim institutions".

In the new documentary, a female reporter attends prayer meetings at an important British mosque which claims to be dedicated to moderation and "dialogue with other faiths".

According to Channel 4, "she secretly films sermons given to the women-only congregation in which female preachers recite extremist and intolerant beliefs".

In one scene, as hundreds of women and some children come to pray, a preacher calls for adulterers, homosexuals, women who act like men and Muslim converts to other faiths to be killed, saying: "Kill him, kill him. You have to kill him, you understand. This is Islam."

Not much changes in the wacky world of extreme religion, does it? You can catch the programme at 8 p.m. on 1 September. A definite date for the diary.

No, it is not the first of April!

I was going to say, "You'll never believe this." But, in light of recent events, you will.

Taxpayers' money is now going to be spent, it seems, on pretty little bootees for police sniffer dogs. And you don't need to guess who's insisting on that requirement. Guidelines are being drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) urging awareness of religious sensitivities.

If a Muslim objects when police wish to enter his or her home, officers will have to use sniffer dogs only in exceptional cases. Even then, the proud pooch will have to put on a pair of bootees with rubber soles (no matter what the emergency, we assume).

"We are trying to ensure that police forces are aware of sensitivities that people can have with the dogs to make sure they are not going against any religious or cultural element within people’s homes," says Islam-appeasing ACPO. "It is being addressed and forces are working towards doing it."

And I thought I'd seen it all.

Dog and phone

Reality check. Is it the first of April? Nope. Then this must be true.

Believe it or not, Muslims (who else?) are irate, up in arms, complaining, moaning, call it what you will, about a police postcard advertising a non-emergency phone number for a Scottish force.

Why? Is it because someone has printed "Allah be buggered!" on every one of them? Is it because there's a picture of Mohammed twizzling a policeman's helmet on his knob while sucking on a pork sausage?

No. There's a doggy in the picture. That's all. A cute little doggy called Rebel. Sitting in a policeman's cap with a telephone alongside him. That's all. Just Rebel, the cap and the phone. Nothing else. Except the information the Tayside Constabulary wishes to put out, of course, about its non-emergency phone number.

"The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert," says this story in the Daily Mail (a couple of days old, but, hey, we get there in the end – and not all our highly intelligent readers bother with the Mail).

The story continues: "Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: 'My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.' "

Poor Mohammed bloody Asif.

He goes on, "They should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they'd seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn't have done it."

But why, oh why, should they pay any attention to religious madmen? This sort of thing could go on for ever, with objections to this and that and goodness knows what else. It's total madness, and giving in to these highly disturbed pillocks is just not on.

Should the police not use police dogs, either, then, even in so-called Muslim areas? Would a Muslim police officer refuse to work with a dog? What would happen if he or she did? You can bet your bottom that the moaning Minny's "sensitivities" would be catered for if the following is anything to go by.

A spokesman for the force is quoted as saying, "His incredible worldwide popularity – he has attracted record visitor numbers to our website – led us to believe Rebel could play a starring role in the promotion of our non-emergency number. We did not seek advice from the force's diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused." (Emphasis mine.)

Appeasement, no less! You chicken-livered wazzock! Stanley Baldwin had nothing on today's supine, ball-less authorities, who won't stand up to religious insanity and religious bullying, but allow themselves to be walked all over by superstitionists who feel hurt and offended by almost anything you can mention.

Am I angry? Yes, I'm fucking angry!

Police at prayer

This is creepy. It was reported yesterday, and took place earlier in the week, and at first I thought, What the hell! But the more I look at it the more I don't like it.

Here's a quote: "By working and praying together to reduce crime and disorder we not only change the physical circumstances that affect people's everyday lives but we change the spiritual circumstances."

It comes from Chief Superintendent Neil Wain, Stockport divisional commander of Greater Manchester Police and a self-confessed Christian, after a mammoth pray-in attended by police chiefs and politicians at the Manchester Velodrome.

Now, it's one thing bringing the "faith" (ugh!) communities and police together to look at crime and ways of combating it, as long as said "faith" (ugh!) communities are given no more of a say than other interested groups. But this was a pray-in!

"More than 6,000 Christians have met for an evening of prayer focusing on gang crime in Greater Manchester," says the intro to the BBC story of an event organised by a religious group called City Links.

"They were asked to pray for police forces and the reduction of gang crime," it continues. Gang crime will not be reduced by swivel-eyed loons praying to invisible people. It may make them feel better, but it will not have an effect on gang crime. The cost of the police's attendance could well have gone to initiatives a little more Earth-based. Even if they attended in their own time, then perhaps that time could have been better spent back at the station on solid policing or reaching out to the criminals and would-be criminals they wish to curtail. Sitting in a stadium praying will just leave the criminals laughing.

Now get this: "Debra Green, director of City Links, said: 'Persistent prayer, over many years, has opened the way for a huge number of effective initiatives delivering benefits to people and communities far and wide.' "

Unfortunately, the story does not tell us how this has worked. What is meant by "opened the way"? It's vague. Just how has "persistent prayer" achieved this? Was it some sort of energy that has emanated from people who pray? Is it magic? Who persistently prayed? How many did so? Did they do this at special meetings? How many meetings were held? How many were specifically prayer meetings and how many just meetings at which people were asked to pray? How many prayed at those latter meetings? What form did this prayer take? Who was prayed to – God, Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu, Zeus? Who paid for all of this? What is the "huge number" of which you speak? Where? What were the initiatives (or some examples)? What do you mean by "effective"? How effective? Were the prayers answered to the letter? If so, or even only half so, why weren't the news media full of it? Quite a story, I'd say. Even Derren Brown couldn't pull off that sort of thing!

Wain said, "There are significant benefits from initiatives which involve faith communities working with the police and local agencies, including improving community confidence and trust, increased understanding and not least reduced crime."

Well, yes, as I said, there's room for all sorts of interested groups, but it's this creepy idea that praying has brought it off. As they mumbled to the Almighty, did a ghostly hand come from the sky in the streets and stay the hand of a would-be knife attacker? Did an angel appear to a gang of young thugs and say, "That is so not cool, man"?

I used to attend police stations a lot as a radio journalist, and one police PR man in Wales – he was known as Dai Press – once told me, "You can't see [Chief Inspector So-and-so] till half past ten. They'll still be at prayers."

What?

I needn't have worried. It was their slightly irreverent term for their morning conference for senior officers. The way the police are going these days (especially with their propensity for favouring religious nutters over sensible investigative journalism), it wouldn't surprise me to see police stations all over the country build a one-hour multifaith service into their daily timetable.

And who will pay for their time? Well, presumably the people who pay for their time when they go to big pray-ins. The public.

Testing the "no-go" areas

Much as I find Stephen "Birdshit" Green of Christian Voice a pain in the arse, I hope he further exposes West Midlands police for the prattish plods they are showing themselves to be at the moment by upholding religious privilege.

West Midlands Police, you may remember, showed their appeasement credentials when they tried to take on Channel 4 for their excellent and revealing Undercover Mosque documentary, and were then forced to apologise.

Since then there's been the ejection of a pair of Christian preachers from a Birmingham suburb by the same police force in the guise of one of their Muslim community support officers, because it was a predominantly Muslim area.

The last time I checked I thought Brum was a place for British people of whatever religion (or none) and any visitors to this country who happen to be there, not an area that belongs to Muslims. Perhaps I've been wrong all along.

Anyway, off they went, these two American preachers, with their tails between their legs. I might think them nutters, but they have a right to leaflet, just as you or I do. And I support their right to do so – even if they're spitting bile against gay people or other minorities. Provided they're not directly inciting violence or barring minorities from services that are rightfully theirs, they have every right to say that their chosen belief system believes this and that.

The UK's Daily Telegraph said on Monday:

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities . . .

These guys, Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have now launched a legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

It happened at Alum Rock, an area that has a disproportionate number of Muslims living in it, to the east of Birmingham city centre. Cunningham tells the paper that the police community support officer (PCSO) said they "were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message". He continued, "He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

The paper doesn't tell us that the uppity prat of a PCSO was a Muslim, but he's named by Christian Voice and others (including the Daily Mail), as Naeem Naguthney.

The paper concludes:

The ministers claim he also advised them not to return to the area. As he walked away, the PCSO said: "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned."

West Midlands Police, who refused to apologise, said the incident had been "fully investigated" and the officer would be given training in understanding hate crime and communication.

Now, Christian Voice are getting in on the act. Members will be gathering at Alum Rock on 14 June at 10 a.m. Green says in a press release that, although West Midlands Police have said the officer would be given training, Naguthney had "summoned two other officers, one of whom, a full constable, is said to have told the preachers not to return to the area, [so] an anti-Christian attitude could be prevalent in the force."

Green would say that. He's a rabid Christian of the frothing born-again variety. What is more likely is not so much an anti-Christian attitude as an appeasing-Muslims attitude.

No doubt there'll be a fair smattering of media at Alum Rock on 14 June.

Don't mention the C-word!, Part II

This Scientology fiasco is getting worse. Before we know it, the word cult will be banned nationwide.

The anti-C-word fever has spread to Birmingham in the West Midlands now, it seems, after what happened in Glasgow and London.

Four demonstrators have been given £50 fixed penalties for leafleting, according to the first link above, under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act. The poster on that forum seems to think freedom of expression is protected, in that the Act was aimed at commercial flyers and the like.

That's as may be, but, if the authorities and the police want to find some way of protecting religious and big-business interests (these are conflated in the case of the DANGEROUS CULT of Scientology, of course), they'll do it.

This one, for instance, is too much of a coincidence. Would they confiscate the leaflets if they were pleading the cause of the local mosque or parish church? Doubt it. Go figure. There's something afoot, and it stinks.

Don't mention the C-word!

The human-rights lawyers are not going to let it go. It's that C-word again. Cult. You can't use it in Glasgow now after the recent fiasco in London. After Strathclyde Police banned its use a week ago, they're now coming under attack for trampling on human rights, according to the Sunday Herald.

"Officers banned the placards," says the Herald, "during a demonstration against the self-styled church in Glasgow city centre last weekend. Civil liberties campaigners have warned a dangerous precedent is being set for the suppression of free speech."

It goes on to remind us of the London incident, in which a 15-year-old boy was told to dump his placard, which said Scientology was a "dangerous cult". Overzealous police subsequently dropped any idea of prosecuting him, on advice from the Crown Prosecution Service – but the threat was there for several days.

John Scott, a human-rights lawyer, says this all suggests the so-called church is receiving preferential treatment. "Scientology is a wealthy organisation with pretty influential people involved. But that doesn't mean it's entitled to any more protection from the police – though it does appear that is the reality of the situation.

"This latest incident sets a dangerous precedent and I hope the police do not have to be taken to court for them to accept the right of free speech."

I hope the police do have to be taken to court, so that this can be settled once and for all. Scientology is as much a cult as any other cult. One dictionary defines a cult as a "system of religious or spiritual beliefs, especially an informal and transient belief system regarded by others as misguided or unorthodox".

Especially an informal and transient one, not only such. This makes Christianity a cult, and Islam and Hinduism, too, along with Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.

Strathclyde Police admitted that their officers had stopped activists using the word cult after receiving a complaint. From the Church of Scientology, perhaps? Who else? A myopic old dear who misread the word cult?

A police spokeswoman tells the paper, "The word [cult] is not a breach of the peace in itself. However, in this case it was exacerbating the situation and our stance was that we had to remove that. From a policing point of view, a balance has to be struck between the right to assemble and hold a meeting and other persons' rights to go about their business or demonstrate without being obstructed or hindered."

Bollocks!

Were there any demonstrations against the use of the C-word? Were there threats to life and limb and buildings and policemen's helmets?

There's an anti-Scientology movement that calls itself, simply, Anonymous. This weekend, this leaderless, Internet-based group said it had recovered the banners and would be launching a fight to use the word. "The police have told us that breach of peace is very open to interpretation and there are no Scottish test cases they can refer to," said a spokesman. "We're furious that we're being told we cannot use the word cult – we've got rulings from London, Germany, France saying this is exactly what Scientology is. No one wants to get arrested – our members just want to protest."

Have a look at the vid below: Anonymous's address to Scientology. If you go to the YouTube page this is on, you'll find more.