Following our piece on the gay South African music teacher who got an apology from the religious bigots who sacked him, we're now happy to report that the Dutch Reformed Church, Moreleta Park, will pay him about R87,000 (£6,000; US$10,500) in damages and loss of income. Well, we can't claim it was our story that did it, but it's nice to report, all the same.
Johan Strydom claimed the church discriminated against him on the grounds of sexual orientation.
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Hat tip: Barry Duke at the Freethinker
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
D:REAMs and conCERNs
The Big Bang and all that!
About now, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, is powering up to First Beam for what’s been described as either the beginning of a great era of discovery for humankind or the end of the world!
The experiment will fire two beams of subatomic particles around a 17-mile circuit in opposite directions, smashing them into each other. The aim is to produce enough energy to recreate the conditions that existed immediately after the Big Bang, in order to, among other things, detect the existence of the Higgs boson – the so-called God particle – and to try to explain such phenomena as the nature of dark matter.
The LHC has been built at a cost of almost £5 billion ($9 billion) and has generated a massive amount of interest around the world. Most scientists and physicists are very excited about the project, while others have criticised it.
The UK’s former chief science adviser, David King, believes the LHC has diverted top scientists away from tackling the more pressing issues of the time, such as climate change.
Some people have questioned the cost to the taxpayer. However, it’s worth remembering that because CERN scientists wanted a better means of communicating with each other around the world, they created the World Wide Web – then gave the technology away – free!
And a few scientists are concerned that the collider will produce black holes that will grow out of control and eat up the planet from the inside. In Honolulu, as reported in March of this year in the Honolulu Advertiser, and picked up by the press worldwide, Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho have even filed a lawsuit against CERN, claiming that they haven’t carried out adequate research into the safety implications of the experiment.
However, scientists working for CERN – and there are some 10,000 of them! – say they have reviewed all the evidence and concluded that it poses no risk to the universe.
According to this piece in the Independent, Dr James Gillies, a particle physicist and LHC spokesperson:
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Meanwhile, the former D:REAM musician-turned-physicist, Professor Brian Cox, speaking in the current issue of the Radio Times, is a little more forthright in his opinion of the doubters:
Throughout the day, BBC Radio 4’s Big Bang Day will broadcast a galaxy of programmes – news items, documentaries and dramas, including a special radio edition of the TV sci-fi show Torchwood, “Lost Souls”, starring John Barrowman (as Captain Jack Harkness). Interestingly, Barrowman will be enthusing to Cox about the LHC this morning on Physics Rocks, while, in the Doctor Who spin-off this afternoon, his fictional counterpart will be warning of one of those “doomsday scenarios” Cox talks about!
Anyway, if you’ve read this, presumably everything has gone to plan!
About now, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, is powering up to First Beam for what’s been described as either the beginning of a great era of discovery for humankind or the end of the world!
The experiment will fire two beams of subatomic particles around a 17-mile circuit in opposite directions, smashing them into each other. The aim is to produce enough energy to recreate the conditions that existed immediately after the Big Bang, in order to, among other things, detect the existence of the Higgs boson – the so-called God particle – and to try to explain such phenomena as the nature of dark matter.
The LHC has been built at a cost of almost £5 billion ($9 billion) and has generated a massive amount of interest around the world. Most scientists and physicists are very excited about the project, while others have criticised it.
The UK’s former chief science adviser, David King, believes the LHC has diverted top scientists away from tackling the more pressing issues of the time, such as climate change.
Some people have questioned the cost to the taxpayer. However, it’s worth remembering that because CERN scientists wanted a better means of communicating with each other around the world, they created the World Wide Web – then gave the technology away – free!And a few scientists are concerned that the collider will produce black holes that will grow out of control and eat up the planet from the inside. In Honolulu, as reported in March of this year in the Honolulu Advertiser, and picked up by the press worldwide, Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho have even filed a lawsuit against CERN, claiming that they haven’t carried out adequate research into the safety implications of the experiment.
However, scientists working for CERN – and there are some 10,000 of them! – say they have reviewed all the evidence and concluded that it poses no risk to the universe.
According to this piece in the Independent, Dr James Gillies, a particle physicist and LHC spokesperson:
There’s nothing to worry about, the LHC is absolutely safe, because we have observed nature doing the same things the LHC will do. Protons regularly collide in the earth's upper atmosphere without creating black holes.
What we are looking at is a global community representing 10,000 people working in 500 universities in 80 countries, none of whom has the slightest worry about risks of this kind. Then we have a retired German chemist who has never published a paper in this field in his life, who has come up with this theory.
We are very excited about the project, we hope to learn more about this wonderful universe of ours.
+3.jpg)
Meanwhile, the former D:REAM musician-turned-physicist, Professor Brian Cox, speaking in the current issue of the Radio Times, is a little more forthright in his opinion of the doubters:The nonsense you find on the web about “doomsday scenarios” is conspiracy theory rubbish generated by a small group of nutters, primarily on the other side of the Atlantic. These people also think that the Theory of Relativity is a Jewish conspiracy and that America didn’t land on the Moon. Both are more likely, by the way, than the LHC destroying the world. I’m slightly irritated, because this non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes things like intelligent design.
Throughout the day, BBC Radio 4’s Big Bang Day will broadcast a galaxy of programmes – news items, documentaries and dramas, including a special radio edition of the TV sci-fi show Torchwood, “Lost Souls”, starring John Barrowman (as Captain Jack Harkness). Interestingly, Barrowman will be enthusing to Cox about the LHC this morning on Physics Rocks, while, in the Doctor Who spin-off this afternoon, his fictional counterpart will be warning of one of those “doomsday scenarios” Cox talks about!
Anyway, if you’ve read this, presumably everything has gone to plan!
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Cardinal in pink
Further to the story “Dem bones, dem bones, dem gay bones”, which we ran a week ago, it is interesting that Cardinal Newman and Father Ambrose St John feature prominently in Michael Elliman and Frederick Roll’s The Pink Plaque Guide to London, published by the UK Gay Men’s Press in 1986.The guide lists where to find pink plaques on buildings in the capital that commemorate notable gay men and lesbians, and there are no fewer than five in honour of Newman. The text of the section on Newman relates:
When Ambrose died in 1875, the distraught Newman was inconsolable. He flung himself onto the death bed and remained with his friend all night. For the rest of his life he grieved for Ambrose and could never more hear his name without, as the Bishop of Birmingham noticed, “weeping and becoming speechless for the time”.
If this is accurate, it certainly shows that the relationship between the two men was more than mere friendship.
Incidentally, the text also points out:
[H]e had always been a controversial figure, castigated when an Anglican for being too close to Rome yet accused as a Catholic of being a freethinker and a dangerous influence.
The pink plaque scheme runs along similar lines to the more well-known blue plaque scheme.
Jews and Sikhs are cross with Auntie
We hellspawn secularists aren't the only ones who think the world's gone mad in kowtowing to Islam, it seems.
Now Jews and Sikhs are joining the bandwagon. They're accusing the BBC of making a disproportionate number of programmes about Muslims compared with those about their own religions.
I suppose they'd like the number of programmes increased to the Muslim number. I have a better idea: bring the Muslim-inspired programmes – indeed, all religious programmes – down to the Jew and Sikh levels. Then we might find useful, stimulating, informative and interesting programmes about religion instead of those that merely showcase it.
Now Jews and Sikhs are joining the bandwagon. They're accusing the BBC of making a disproportionate number of programmes about Muslims compared with those about their own religions.
I suppose they'd like the number of programmes increased to the Muslim number. I have a better idea: bring the Muslim-inspired programmes – indeed, all religious programmes – down to the Jew and Sikh levels. Then we might find useful, stimulating, informative and interesting programmes about religion instead of those that merely showcase it.
Monday, 8 September 2008
How do you solve a problem like sharia?
They want to cut off people's heads and hands in a British Midlands town, if you believe a story in the Birmingham-based tabloid Sunday Mercury.
Apparently, there's been a sharia court sitting for several months at the Hijaz College Islamic University in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. It's said to be the UK's first Islamic sharia court.
This tribunal – which calls itself the Muslim Arbitration Council – "operates alongside the British legal system" and has "binding legal status". There may be things wrong with the British legal system (as there are with any legal system), but it's what our legislators have put in place for Britain, and we, using an admittedly flawed electoral system, have put those legislators in place, using the limited democracy successive governments allow us to have.
Further legal arrangements should be decided by our elected representatives, not a bunch of deluded, Allah-soaked superstitionists who think their imported, religiously inspired legal system should sit in addition to, and have "binding legal status" alongside, the one that is legally in place in the country they've chosen to live in.
But this is more evidence of the sinister creeping Islamisation that the great and the good in the UK are allowing to slither over and around us. They won't be happy till it's too late to stop it, and, as if from a Kafkaesque nightmare, they'll wake up one morning to find they're ruled by Islamist politicians and adjudicated over by an Islamist judiciary.
Recently, Britain's Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, said there was no reason why sharia law could not be used for contractual agreements and marital disputes. Well, there's no reason, presumably, my lord, why any two parties shouldn't thrash out an agreement over just about anything, provided that decision didn't then obviate the need for the law to step in (if it were a situation that would normally involve it).
I mean, if you and I agree that you won't park your ugly, gas-guzzling people carrier outside my house, but it took a couple of neighbours to help us decide on that agreement, there's no harm in that. So was there any need for such a pronouncement? Is it not just a form of arbitration, of which there are many in the UK?
Ah, but this is sharia? So where does sharia differ from British law? What is wrong with arbitration panels and County Courts already in existence under civil law? Perhaps the clue is here, where the paper says:
Is that what he would prefer, then? That Britain should become "civilised" and start to separate people from their limbs?
If the paper has reported him faithfully (and it is a trashy tabloid, don't forget, but presumably it knows its representation of him can be challenged), then this man is a dangerous and deranged idiot, and ought to be prosecuted for inciting violence. For that's what his sentiments look like.
If he's telling fellow Muslims (and he is a "scholar", let us not forget, and will command respect) that it would be "civilised" to use "the highest degree of punishment", and he feels that those punishments should include decapitation, amputations and floggings, there's something seriously wrong with a country that allows the head of one of its educational institutions (albeit one many of whose teachings are based on uncivilised seventh-century thinking) to hold such views and express them publicly with his official hat on.
And this is someone who is part of the ideology that is pushing for an end to criticism of the Muslim "faith" within the UN. He and his cranky kind, his fellow sharia-ists, can call, it seems, for people to be flogged and have their heads amputated, but they don't want us to criticise their disturbing, wacky, menacing, sinister worldview.
Perhaps it's the college that ought to lose its head.
Apparently, there's been a sharia court sitting for several months at the Hijaz College Islamic University in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. It's said to be the UK's first Islamic sharia court.
This tribunal – which calls itself the Muslim Arbitration Council – "operates alongside the British legal system" and has "binding legal status". There may be things wrong with the British legal system (as there are with any legal system), but it's what our legislators have put in place for Britain, and we, using an admittedly flawed electoral system, have put those legislators in place, using the limited democracy successive governments allow us to have.
Further legal arrangements should be decided by our elected representatives, not a bunch of deluded, Allah-soaked superstitionists who think their imported, religiously inspired legal system should sit in addition to, and have "binding legal status" alongside, the one that is legally in place in the country they've chosen to live in.
But this is more evidence of the sinister creeping Islamisation that the great and the good in the UK are allowing to slither over and around us. They won't be happy till it's too late to stop it, and, as if from a Kafkaesque nightmare, they'll wake up one morning to find they're ruled by Islamist politicians and adjudicated over by an Islamist judiciary.
Recently, Britain's Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, said there was no reason why sharia law could not be used for contractual agreements and marital disputes. Well, there's no reason, presumably, my lord, why any two parties shouldn't thrash out an agreement over just about anything, provided that decision didn't then obviate the need for the law to step in (if it were a situation that would normally involve it).
I mean, if you and I agree that you won't park your ugly, gas-guzzling people carrier outside my house, but it took a couple of neighbours to help us decide on that agreement, there's no harm in that. So was there any need for such a pronouncement? Is it not just a form of arbitration, of which there are many in the UK?
Ah, but this is sharia? So where does sharia differ from British law? What is wrong with arbitration panels and County Courts already in existence under civil law? Perhaps the clue is here, where the paper says:
But in some Muslim countries punishments handed out under the legal system have included beheadings, public floggings and thieves’ hands being chopped off.
Faisal Aqtab Siddiqi, a commercial law barrister and head of Hijaz College, who has sat in judgment at a number of the tribunals, said British society was not ready for such punishments.
But he added that if society became more "civilised" then those who broke the law should expect to receive the highest degree of punishment [my emphasis].
Is that what he would prefer, then? That Britain should become "civilised" and start to separate people from their limbs?
If the paper has reported him faithfully (and it is a trashy tabloid, don't forget, but presumably it knows its representation of him can be challenged), then this man is a dangerous and deranged idiot, and ought to be prosecuted for inciting violence. For that's what his sentiments look like.
If he's telling fellow Muslims (and he is a "scholar", let us not forget, and will command respect) that it would be "civilised" to use "the highest degree of punishment", and he feels that those punishments should include decapitation, amputations and floggings, there's something seriously wrong with a country that allows the head of one of its educational institutions (albeit one many of whose teachings are based on uncivilised seventh-century thinking) to hold such views and express them publicly with his official hat on.
And this is someone who is part of the ideology that is pushing for an end to criticism of the Muslim "faith" within the UN. He and his cranky kind, his fellow sharia-ists, can call, it seems, for people to be flogged and have their heads amputated, but they don't want us to criticise their disturbing, wacky, menacing, sinister worldview.
Perhaps it's the college that ought to lose its head.
Fighting the fight against homophobia with homophobia – the Christian way
It's not safe to use a Victoria, Australia, adventure resort if you're gay. Well, that seems to be the verdict of its owners.
But, then, its owners are Christians of the decidedly undesirable variety, so it comes as no surprise.
The Christian Brethren have told a young people's support group for gays, called Way Out, that they can't use their Phillip Island Adventure Resort camp for a meeting about how to tackle homophobia. Yet the Christians have proved that such a meeting is required by being – well – homophobic.
Australia's Sunday Age says:
The general manager of Christian Youth Camps, which owns the site, Glyn Mahon, says the church has not been able to agree on the group's booking for safety reasons. "Our definition of safety, because of our Christian faith, does not support or include the promotion of homosexuality," he said.
So that explains it, then. Not homophobia. Just safety.
What is particularly galling is that these religious groups get tax concessions because, as with religious organisations here in the UK, they're . . . you've guessed it: they're religious. The Sunday Age article continues:
Irony indeed!
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Hat tip: Barry Duke at the Freethinker
But, then, its owners are Christians of the decidedly undesirable variety, so it comes as no surprise.
The Christian Brethren have told a young people's support group for gays, called Way Out, that they can't use their Phillip Island Adventure Resort camp for a meeting about how to tackle homophobia. Yet the Christians have proved that such a meeting is required by being – well – homophobic.
Australia's Sunday Age says:
The rejection by the Phillip Island Adventure Resort so angered the rural gay people's support group, Way Out, that they have challenged it in the Victorian Equal Opportunities and Human Rights Commission, and now the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
But the law is stacked against the young people: religious groups in Victoria are allowed to discriminate against anyone as long as it is done due to "genuine religious beliefs or principles".
The general manager of Christian Youth Camps, which owns the site, Glyn Mahon, says the church has not been able to agree on the group's booking for safety reasons. "Our definition of safety, because of our Christian faith, does not support or include the promotion of homosexuality," he said.
So that explains it, then. Not homophobia. Just safety.
What is particularly galling is that these religious groups get tax concessions because, as with religious organisations here in the UK, they're . . . you've guessed it: they're religious. The Sunday Age article continues:
Way Out's co-ordinator, Sue Hackney, said her clients were from country areas, and suffered terrible, sometimes violent, homophobia and high rates of suicide. The weekend camp, scheduled for the middle of last year, was intended to give them a break by the beach, where they could seek support and discuss how to combat homophobia in their towns.
"It's a bitter irony that the very first thing we experienced when we set out to book the camp was a case of blatant discrimination."
Irony indeed!
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Hat tip: Barry Duke at the Freethinker
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Creating an impression
Listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 this summer (. . . summer? but that’s another story!), you’d be forgiven for thinking that the UK is America’s 51st state. It irritates the hell out of me every time journalists refer to the US president as simply “the President”, as if he’s somehow our president.
I’m also irritated that Today has been co-broadcast from the US Democratic and Republican conventions. By all means, cover these events, but broadcast the programme from them? Whether or not you believe in the American ideal, and irrespective of how much the “last remaining superpower” influences British and global life, this type of coverage helps only to reinforce the view that the US rules the world, as was demonstrated on 14 April this year, when a Downing Street spokesman said, “We were the fastest-growing country in the US last year.” This notwithstanding that he did then correct himself: “Sorry, the G7.”
What’s really frightening is that the US is so religious.
In the UK, secularists (and some religionists) have argued for decades that church and state should be separate. For a while, it seemed that we were on our way to achieving just that, but now, after eleven years of the Blair/Brown Labour government pandering to religion, we’re further away than ever.
In the US, of course, church and state are separate – though you’d be forgiven for forgetting that at the moment. It depresses the hell out of me how bound up the US is with organised religion, and I’m really disheartened by how their presidential election has become so God-soaked so quickly.
Both the Republican and Democratic conventions exuded Christianity. As we blogged here last month, the Democratic Party organised its first-ever interfaith gathering, at which non-religionist Democrats were specifically excluded, and its 2008 presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has often spoken politically of his deep Christian faith. Then, last week, the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, wowed its convention with her Bible-soaked, “hockey mom” speech.
Over at the God’s Politics blog, Jim Wallis in this entry, suggests “Five Rules of Christian Civility” to be followed during the US presidential election campaign:
What strikes me from these “Five Rules” is that, apparently, Christian civility doesn’t extend to non-Christians!
Palin, of course, is a Christian.
She was baptised as a Roman Catholic when just an infant with no say in the matter, then spent nearly 30 years as a member of America’s largest Pentecostal church, the Assemblies of God. Today, she refers to herself as a “generic Christian”, attending independent churches in Alaska. However, she remains connected to the Assemblies of God, regularly addressing pastors’ conferences and ministry students, whom, in June this year, she told:
Palin is against a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion and supports the teaching of creationism as fact in schools. She claims that she has “gay friends” but, considering that she showed no support for equal rights to gay employees in her home state (she vetoed a bill that denied spousal benefits to gay state employees only after the state attorney general pointed out it was unconstitusional), doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage and has ties to conservative anti-gay groups such as the US Family Research Council, she can’t be very close to them. Either that or she’s lying. If it turns out that she does have some gay friends, I can’t bring myself to think what they’re like, the very thought conjuring up the spectacle of those knitting-homo friends Mary Whitehouse once claimed to have!
I sincerely hope people don’t conclude that I’m anti-American. I’m not. But I am depressed. In writing this piece, I’ve read a lot from America that’s upset me. It’s all a far cry from the letter written by Sharon Underwood, which we covered last week. And it’s that letter, which I’ve just reread, that fills me with hope that all is not lost.
I’m also irritated that Today has been co-broadcast from the US Democratic and Republican conventions. By all means, cover these events, but broadcast the programme from them? Whether or not you believe in the American ideal, and irrespective of how much the “last remaining superpower” influences British and global life, this type of coverage helps only to reinforce the view that the US rules the world, as was demonstrated on 14 April this year, when a Downing Street spokesman said, “We were the fastest-growing country in the US last year.” This notwithstanding that he did then correct himself: “Sorry, the G7.”
What’s really frightening is that the US is so religious.
In the UK, secularists (and some religionists) have argued for decades that church and state should be separate. For a while, it seemed that we were on our way to achieving just that, but now, after eleven years of the Blair/Brown Labour government pandering to religion, we’re further away than ever.
In the US, of course, church and state are separate – though you’d be forgiven for forgetting that at the moment. It depresses the hell out of me how bound up the US is with organised religion, and I’m really disheartened by how their presidential election has become so God-soaked so quickly.
Both the Republican and Democratic conventions exuded Christianity. As we blogged here last month, the Democratic Party organised its first-ever interfaith gathering, at which non-religionist Democrats were specifically excluded, and its 2008 presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has often spoken politically of his deep Christian faith. Then, last week, the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, wowed its convention with her Bible-soaked, “hockey mom” speech.
Over at the God’s Politics blog, Jim Wallis in this entry, suggests “Five Rules of Christian Civility” to be followed during the US presidential election campaign:
1. We Christians should be in the pocket of no political party, but should evaluate both candidates and parties by our biblically-based moral compass.
2. We don't vote on only one issue, but see biblical foundations for our concerns over many issues.
3. We advocate for a consistent ethic of life from womb to tomb, and one that challenges the selective moralities of both the left and the right.
4. We will respect the integrity of our Christian brothers and sisters in their sincere efforts to apply Christian commitments to the important decisions of this election, knowing that people of faith and conscience will be voting both ways in this election year.
5. We will not attack our fellow Christians as Democratic or Republican partisans, but rather will expect and respect the practice of putting our faith first in this election year, even if we reach different conclusions.
What strikes me from these “Five Rules” is that, apparently, Christian civility doesn’t extend to non-Christians!
Palin, of course, is a Christian.
She was baptised as a Roman Catholic when just an infant with no say in the matter, then spent nearly 30 years as a member of America’s largest Pentecostal church, the Assemblies of God. Today, she refers to herself as a “generic Christian”, attending independent churches in Alaska. However, she remains connected to the Assemblies of God, regularly addressing pastors’ conferences and ministry students, whom, in June this year, she told:
I can do my job there in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded. But, really, all of that stuff doesn’t do any good if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.
Palin is against a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion and supports the teaching of creationism as fact in schools. She claims that she has “gay friends” but, considering that she showed no support for equal rights to gay employees in her home state (she vetoed a bill that denied spousal benefits to gay state employees only after the state attorney general pointed out it was unconstitusional), doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage and has ties to conservative anti-gay groups such as the US Family Research Council, she can’t be very close to them. Either that or she’s lying. If it turns out that she does have some gay friends, I can’t bring myself to think what they’re like, the very thought conjuring up the spectacle of those knitting-homo friends Mary Whitehouse once claimed to have!
I sincerely hope people don’t conclude that I’m anti-American. I’m not. But I am depressed. In writing this piece, I’ve read a lot from America that’s upset me. It’s all a far cry from the letter written by Sharon Underwood, which we covered last week. And it’s that letter, which I’ve just reread, that fills me with hope that all is not lost.
Saturday, 6 September 2008
How we ensure they're free to ensure we're not
More bemoaning of our gradual loss of freedom in Europe comes from Clifford D May, writing in Europe News. Free speech, he says, may end not with a bang, not even a whimper, "but with lawyerly assist".
"It was three years ago this month that the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published twelve editorial cartoons satirizing Islamist terrorism," he writes. "Some Muslim organizations objected. Protests were organized. Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran were set ablaze. Dozens of people were killed. The cartoonists and their editors received death threats from such characters as Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza."
He goes on to analyse the Motoons affair, which most readers will be familiar with by now, no doubt, and then tells us that the United Nations General Assembly is
But General Assembly resolutions don't have the force of law, do they? Well, no, says May, but they "provide diplomatic cover for tyrants eager to muzzle critics, and they are routinely cited by leftist 'human rights' groups and journalists as though they were international law".
And you can bet a pound to a penny that politically correct politicians and civil service do-gooders with too much time on their hands will find ways of using such resolutions to open the door ever wider to the creeping Islamisation that will soon gag us all.
"It was three years ago this month that the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published twelve editorial cartoons satirizing Islamist terrorism," he writes. "Some Muslim organizations objected. Protests were organized. Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran were set ablaze. Dozens of people were killed. The cartoonists and their editors received death threats from such characters as Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza."
He goes on to analyse the Motoons affair, which most readers will be familiar with by now, no doubt, and then tells us that the United Nations General Assembly is
considering a resolution sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The ostensible purpose of "Combating Defamation of Religion" [. . .] is to stamp out "incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular". As for other religions, rest assured this resolution will guarantee them as much protection and respect as Christianity, Judaism, Baha'i, and Hinduism now receive in Saudi Arabia, Iran or any of the other sponsoring nations.
But General Assembly resolutions don't have the force of law, do they? Well, no, says May, but they "provide diplomatic cover for tyrants eager to muzzle critics, and they are routinely cited by leftist 'human rights' groups and journalists as though they were international law".
And you can bet a pound to a penny that politically correct politicians and civil service do-gooders with too much time on their hands will find ways of using such resolutions to open the door ever wider to the creeping Islamisation that will soon gag us all.
Friday, 5 September 2008
Croeso! Or perhaps not
Jeffrey John was to become Bishop of Reading five years ago, but was strong-armed into stepping down. Because he's gay, of course. What else would exercise the loony end of the Anglican Church so much?
Now that he's in line to become Bishop of Bangor in Wales, it looks as if it's going to be 2003 all over again.
There's this nutcase called Peter Jones, who is treasurer of Bangor Cathedral and a vicar in the diocese. He doesn't like the idea of John's becoming his bishop – not one little bit. Scripture and all that – even though John is celibate with his partner, the Rev. Grant Holmes, whom he married two years ago.
"As such," says The Times, "he meets the requirements under Anglican teaching that homosexuals should be celibate."
Well you just can't satisfy some people. As we said in our post about penis-fencing whales and self-fellating kangaroos yesterday, it just doesn't matter that being gay is natural, and therefore, in the eyes of religious folk, part of God's creation. No, they obviously believe their all-powerful, all-loving god created gays so he could use the rest of his creation to throw rocks at them.
Anyway, this Jones tosser is quoted by The Times as having told another UK daily, Wales's Western Mail, "I would be strongly opposed to the appointment. Jeffrey John is a strong advocate of changing the Church’s traditional teaching on homosexuality and I accept the teaching of Holy Scripture that homosexual acts are wrong. Therefore to have someone deliberately seek to undermine that teaching – that is clearly not someone who is suitable to hold office as a bishop in the Church of God."
But what do you mean by traditional, Mr Jones? The Rev. Martin Reynolds, a priest in Wales and a spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, tells The Times (and this is nothing we did not already know, but it's as well to remind the bigoted from time to time) that many traditional teachings in the Bible, such as severe punishments for adultery, are no longer observed literally. Which is just as well, since half our politicians would end up stoned.
Come to think of it, I bet there are a few vicars wearing polycotton shirts (mixed fibres), too, and eating prawns and pork, though not necessarily at the same time.
Which all goes to show that they'll cite biblical tosh when it suits them, and conveniently ignore it when it doesn't.
Now that he's in line to become Bishop of Bangor in Wales, it looks as if it's going to be 2003 all over again.
There's this nutcase called Peter Jones, who is treasurer of Bangor Cathedral and a vicar in the diocese. He doesn't like the idea of John's becoming his bishop – not one little bit. Scripture and all that – even though John is celibate with his partner, the Rev. Grant Holmes, whom he married two years ago.
"As such," says The Times, "he meets the requirements under Anglican teaching that homosexuals should be celibate."
Well you just can't satisfy some people. As we said in our post about penis-fencing whales and self-fellating kangaroos yesterday, it just doesn't matter that being gay is natural, and therefore, in the eyes of religious folk, part of God's creation. No, they obviously believe their all-powerful, all-loving god created gays so he could use the rest of his creation to throw rocks at them.
Anyway, this Jones tosser is quoted by The Times as having told another UK daily, Wales's Western Mail, "I would be strongly opposed to the appointment. Jeffrey John is a strong advocate of changing the Church’s traditional teaching on homosexuality and I accept the teaching of Holy Scripture that homosexual acts are wrong. Therefore to have someone deliberately seek to undermine that teaching – that is clearly not someone who is suitable to hold office as a bishop in the Church of God."
But what do you mean by traditional, Mr Jones? The Rev. Martin Reynolds, a priest in Wales and a spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, tells The Times (and this is nothing we did not already know, but it's as well to remind the bigoted from time to time) that many traditional teachings in the Bible, such as severe punishments for adultery, are no longer observed literally. Which is just as well, since half our politicians would end up stoned.
Come to think of it, I bet there are a few vicars wearing polycotton shirts (mixed fibres), too, and eating prawns and pork, though not necessarily at the same time.
Which all goes to show that they'll cite biblical tosh when it suits them, and conveniently ignore it when it doesn't.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Aisha: more sanity prevails
They're queuing up to publish The Jewel of Medina now, it seems.
First I read over on MediaWatchWatch that a British publisher is going to do a 27,000 print run. Then I came across an Associated Press story in the Star Tribune saying that a US publisher plans to publish the novel over there.
This comes not long after a Danish publisher said it was interested.
Random House gutlessly pulled the book after consulting "scholars". As usual when Muslims are likely to kick up a fuss, whatever it is they're kicking up a fuss about gets more publicity than it probably would have done, the rightness of free speech and free expression is aired, braver souls come to the fore and . . .
Well, those Muslims are probably doing us all a favour!
First I read over on MediaWatchWatch that a British publisher is going to do a 27,000 print run. Then I came across an Associated Press story in the Star Tribune saying that a US publisher plans to publish the novel over there.
This comes not long after a Danish publisher said it was interested.
Random House gutlessly pulled the book after consulting "scholars". As usual when Muslims are likely to kick up a fuss, whatever it is they're kicking up a fuss about gets more publicity than it probably would have done, the rightness of free speech and free expression is aired, braver souls come to the fore and . . .
Well, those Muslims are probably doing us all a favour!
Penis-fencing whales and self-fellating kangaroos
Nothing like an eye-catching headline to get your interest. And they don't come more eye-catching.
It's there to illustrate that creatures other than humans get up to all kinds of sexual behaviour – behaviour that, in humans, is condemned by Bible loonies as unnatural.
But a piece in today's Scotsman tells us – as if intelligent people actually needed more telling – that being gay is just one of those things. Natural. Inborn. Genetic. A bit like heterosexuality, really. No one ever asks what "causes" heterosexuality, after all.
The piece is by Dr Mairi MacLeod, who begins thus:
Amazing what some people will do in the interests of healthy enquiry. Anyway, the good doctor continues:
Basically, the article says, there's no reason to think that homosexuality is anything other than completely natural. After all, it says, plenty of other species, from bears to flamingos, "indulge in boy-on-boy and girl-on-girl sex".
One idea, often cited, is that gay people help their relatives with such things as childcare and money, which leads to more siblings or nephews and nieces, therefore ensuring the survival of shared genes. "But actually there's no good evidence for this," the article says.
It goes on:
There's more, so by all means click on the link above and read the entire article.
What evidence of the naturalness of homosexuality does show is that, even if you posit the idea of a creator god, you'd have to concede that he, she or it has made us with sexual variation. Some of us are gay. It's a fact, bible bashers, so get used to it.
But they won't, of course. It's unnatural, and that's that. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, they'll tell you, even those who don't believe in the literal Garden of Eden as depicted in Genesis.
Even those who hate gays on the grounds that sex should be between married people have lost on that score, now that marriage between people of the same sex – yes, even called marriage in some places – is now a fact of life.
But their sick, twisted excuses for minds usually come up with some convoluted load of bullshit. Seems odd, though, that their loving god should make people just for the pleasure of condemning them.
But God moves in mysterious ways, they say.
True. He made bible bashers.
It's there to illustrate that creatures other than humans get up to all kinds of sexual behaviour – behaviour that, in humans, is condemned by Bible loonies as unnatural.
But a piece in today's Scotsman tells us – as if intelligent people actually needed more telling – that being gay is just one of those things. Natural. Inborn. Genetic. A bit like heterosexuality, really. No one ever asks what "causes" heterosexuality, after all.
The piece is by Dr Mairi MacLeod, who begins thus:
There is increasing evidence that the basis for our sexual orientation comes down to biology. Basically, there's no reason to think that homosexuality is anything other than completely natural.
A BBC programme earlier in the summer, The Making of Me, had [Doctor Who and Torchwood] actor John Barrowman on a mission to prove that his sexuality was something he was born with, a quest that had him measuring gay men's fingers at a Pride parade and watching porn with electrodes wired to his penis.
Amazing what some people will do in the interests of healthy enquiry. Anyway, the good doctor continues:
And there is increasing evidence that the basis for our sexual orientation comes down to biology. A study published in June showed that certain brain structures of gay people resemble those of opposite-sex heterosexuals. This also seems to be reflected in the way people with different gender identities use their brains. The documentary pointed out that, generally, women tend to have greater verbal fluency than men, but that gay men's brains work in a similar way to women's. Barrowman's verbals, predictably, were right off the scale.
Basically, the article says, there's no reason to think that homosexuality is anything other than completely natural. After all, it says, plenty of other species, from bears to flamingos, "indulge in boy-on-boy and girl-on-girl sex".
In fact, a lot of animals get up to much more risqué stuff than that. An exhibition called The Sex Lives of Animals has opened at the Museum of Sex in New York and features animals engaged in all manner of pastimes, including penis-fencing grey whales and self-fellating kangaroos. According to New Scientist magazine, the aim of the exhibition is to demolish preconceived ideas about sexuality and gender stereotypes. But I digress.
Back to humans and the relatively straightforward issue of homosexuality, the puzzle that scientists have been battling to solve is this: given that homosexuals, on average, have far fewer children than straight people, how have genes for homosexuality been maintained in the population?
One idea, often cited, is that gay people help their relatives with such things as childcare and money, which leads to more siblings or nephews and nieces, therefore ensuring the survival of shared genes. "But actually there's no good evidence for this," the article says.
It goes on:
Research by Andrea Camperio Ciani and colleagues at the University of Padua, Italy, suggests that genes which make men more likely to be homosexual also make women likely to have more babies than average, and the team published work a couple of weeks ago showing the same is true for genes for bisexuality in men. It seems that the genes that make men tend to like men also cause women to like men – a kind of hyper-heterosexuality in women. The genes stick around in the population because the extra children produced by the women carrying them make up for the lower output of their gay male relatives.
There's more, so by all means click on the link above and read the entire article.
What evidence of the naturalness of homosexuality does show is that, even if you posit the idea of a creator god, you'd have to concede that he, she or it has made us with sexual variation. Some of us are gay. It's a fact, bible bashers, so get used to it.
But they won't, of course. It's unnatural, and that's that. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, they'll tell you, even those who don't believe in the literal Garden of Eden as depicted in Genesis.
Even those who hate gays on the grounds that sex should be between married people have lost on that score, now that marriage between people of the same sex – yes, even called marriage in some places – is now a fact of life.
But their sick, twisted excuses for minds usually come up with some convoluted load of bullshit. Seems odd, though, that their loving god should make people just for the pleasure of condemning them.
But God moves in mysterious ways, they say.
True. He made bible bashers.
The obscenity of the obscenity police
Ophelia Benson over at Butterflies and Wheels asks us to spare a thought for the people of Yemen. And with good cause.
"They're getting their very own Saudi-style virtue squad," she writes, "which they didn't even ask for and don't actually very much want." Benson quotes the Guardian:
Benson adds, "Yeah they'd scare me too if they turned up where I live."
The first signs, the story tells us, appeared a few months ago in the Red Sea port of Hodeida. Young men and women there began to be accosted by "bearded vigilantes" demanding proof that couples were related.
But who is to know just what these deranged evil bastards deem obscene? It could be anything. How do people tolerate living under this sort of scrutiny?
Are we not in danger of finding this sort of thing ever closer to home, as Islamisation continues to creep in on other parts of the world? It may be a long time before such obscenities reach our shores here in the UK, for instance, but you need only look around you to see how they want to taint a twenty-first-century world with their seventh-century barbarism, censorship and squashing of rights and freedom of expression.
Our old friends at the Christian think tank Ekklesia carried a piece the other day about the oik – sorry, the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) – and how it's trying to browbeat the UN into introducing what would amount to a worldwide blasphemy law, or at least strong recommendations that backward countries could interpret in whatever way allows them to oppress their people.
And here in the UK our MPs are getting shit-scared of offending Muslims by objecting to such horrors as forced marriages, lest they lose their votes. See my post on the Infidel Bloggers' Alliance site for more on this.
"They're getting their very own Saudi-style virtue squad," she writes, "which they didn't even ask for and don't actually very much want." Benson quotes the Guardian:
For many Yemenis, and for women in particular, this was another alarming sign of the growth of Salafi extremism — an unwelcome import from neighbouring Saudi Arabia where the "mutaween" religious police are part of the scenery. "These people scare the hell out of me," complained Nadia al-Sakkaf, the editor of the Yemen Times.
Benson adds, "Yeah they'd scare me too if they turned up where I live."
The first signs, the story tells us, appeared a few months ago in the Red Sea port of Hodeida. Young men and women there began to be accosted by "bearded vigilantes" demanding proof that couples were related.
Daoud al-Jeni, a self-styled "virtue activist", described his mission as being to curb "obscenity and prostitution". Anti-vice teams, some armed with sticks, have also been operating in Aden, the former British colony in the south.
But who is to know just what these deranged evil bastards deem obscene? It could be anything. How do people tolerate living under this sort of scrutiny?
Are we not in danger of finding this sort of thing ever closer to home, as Islamisation continues to creep in on other parts of the world? It may be a long time before such obscenities reach our shores here in the UK, for instance, but you need only look around you to see how they want to taint a twenty-first-century world with their seventh-century barbarism, censorship and squashing of rights and freedom of expression.
Our old friends at the Christian think tank Ekklesia carried a piece the other day about the oik – sorry, the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) – and how it's trying to browbeat the UN into introducing what would amount to a worldwide blasphemy law, or at least strong recommendations that backward countries could interpret in whatever way allows them to oppress their people.
And here in the UK our MPs are getting shit-scared of offending Muslims by objecting to such horrors as forced marriages, lest they lose their votes. See my post on the Infidel Bloggers' Alliance site for more on this.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Antony Sher's thoughts on God
In the current issue of the Radio Times, Antony Sher is interviewed as part of promoting the Auschwitz drama God on Trial, in which he plays a Polish rabbi:
Sher was born in South Africa, and I have a novel by him (his third, published in 1995) called Cheap Lives, which tells the story of Yusuf, a would-be intellectual “coloured” on Death Row in Pretoria who’s convicted of murdering one and a half people, and Adrian, the “half” that got away, having survived Yusuf’s assault during an afternoon of casual sex. Though I knew, of course, that Sher was gay, I didn’t know he was a nonbeliever before reading the RT interview with him.
The one-off drama, which will be shown in the UK this evening on BBC2 (9–10.30pm), depicts Auschwitz POWs putting God in the dock for breaking his covenant with the Jews.
According to Jack Searle’s preview in the Radio Times, the drama is likely to be controversial:
Indeed! Unfortunately, “reason” is often the last thing on the minds of those religionists who would want there to be no debate about religion at all.
[It’s] a brave piece of television, when everyone is talking about dumbing down […] What’s so good is that it presents all sides of the argument.
Sher was born in South Africa, and I have a novel by him (his third, published in 1995) called Cheap Lives, which tells the story of Yusuf, a would-be intellectual “coloured” on Death Row in Pretoria who’s convicted of murdering one and a half people, and Adrian, the “half” that got away, having survived Yusuf’s assault during an afternoon of casual sex. Though I knew, of course, that Sher was gay, I didn’t know he was a nonbeliever before reading the RT interview with him.
As Sher’s a non-believer, God could not be on trial for him, although he admits, “I’m surprised at how moved I can be by the sound of Jewish prayer. It’s in my blood, however much I turned my back on it. In my lifetime, some of the worst atrocities have been committed in the name of religion – Northern Ireland, people flying planes into skyscrapers, the Middle East. Religion is back with a vengeance – 20 years ago God was off the agenda – and I believe we’d be better off without it. God must be terrible, destructive.”
The one-off drama, which will be shown in the UK this evening on BBC2 (9–10.30pm), depicts Auschwitz POWs putting God in the dock for breaking his covenant with the Jews.
According to Jack Searle’s preview in the Radio Times, the drama is likely to be controversial:
God on Trial remains fair and reverent even as it lists all the best arguments against the existence of a benevolent god, but for those who balk at them anyway, it also asks: when inquiry, reasoning and debate are so central to being human, how can they be profane, even if God is the subject?
Indeed! Unfortunately, “reason” is often the last thing on the minds of those religionists who would want there to be no debate about religion at all.
Bangle wrangle: the story continues
The Sikh girl who won the right to wear a kara, a slim bracelet worn as a sign of faith, at her school in South Wales is now saying up yours to the school and moving on.
You can see the background at "Baubles, bangles and bias" (which we posted in August) and links you'll find on that post, but, basically, Sarika Watkins-Singh's school Aberdare Girls' School, has a jewellery policy that was thrown into chaos by a High Court judge who ruled that, in spite of the fact that the rest of the kids can wear only ear studs and watches, Watkins-Singh can wear a bangle.
OK, it's slim and inoffensive, but equality is equality. If she can wear a bangle, then so should everyone else, and I do hope the kids are kicking up a hell of a stink about it and are all wearing tiaras and diamond-studded nipple rings in protest.
Anyway, Watkins-Singh has now decided that, in spite of the fact that Aberdare has told her she can go back there, she'll go to nearby Mountain Ash Comprehensive School instead (she studied there while she was suspended during the row).
You can see the background at "Baubles, bangles and bias" (which we posted in August) and links you'll find on that post, but, basically, Sarika Watkins-Singh's school Aberdare Girls' School, has a jewellery policy that was thrown into chaos by a High Court judge who ruled that, in spite of the fact that the rest of the kids can wear only ear studs and watches, Watkins-Singh can wear a bangle.
OK, it's slim and inoffensive, but equality is equality. If she can wear a bangle, then so should everyone else, and I do hope the kids are kicking up a hell of a stink about it and are all wearing tiaras and diamond-studded nipple rings in protest.
Anyway, Watkins-Singh has now decided that, in spite of the fact that Aberdare has told her she can go back there, she'll go to nearby Mountain Ash Comprehensive School instead (she studied there while she was suspended during the row).
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Kielbasa
Earlier this week, the Freethinker ran a story about Polish Catholics being unhappy because of Kraków’s plans to target the pink pound:
My excuse for mentioning it here is so that I can share with you the photograph Barry Duke has chosen to go with his story, which depicts the Polish cycling team resplendent in all their rather revealing Lycra-short-wearing glory!
The Freethinker picked up on the story from the Observer of 17 August:
Outraged public opinion? For pity’s sake, what is it with these religionists that they are always so outraged?
What, like kissing or holding hands?
Happily, though, she then went on to do just that:
Meanwhile:
That’s the capitalist spirit!
You can read the full Freethinker story here, but I’m off to gobble some Polish sausage!
Catholics in Poland are aghast that the city wants gays, rather than drunken straight stag-nighters to visit Kraków, which has lost patience with boozy Brits.
My excuse for mentioning it here is so that I can share with you the photograph Barry Duke has chosen to go with his story, which depicts the Polish cycling team resplendent in all their rather revealing Lycra-short-wearing glory!
The Freethinker picked up on the story from the Observer of 17 August:
[T]ourist authorities in the medieval city have outraged Catholic opinion by announcing plans to target the pink purse instead, with a new website and a city map for gay tourists.
Outraged public opinion? For pity’s sake, what is it with these religionists that they are always so outraged?
Howled Piotr Kucharski, spokesman for the Christian Culture Association: “I don’t know which is worse! Drunken Britons may get their genitals out in public. But we don’t want gays performing public obscenities either.”
What, like kissing or holding hands?
Besieged by protests, city tourist bosses have dropped the word “gay” from their vocabulary. Said Magdalena Sroka, who heads the Kraków Festival Office: “I’ve been told by my bosses that I’m not allowed to speak on this subject.
Happily, though, she then went on to do just that:
We’re planning to broaden our offer to include the gay and lesbian target group. In the autumn we’ll be launching a special online section on gay tourism.
Meanwhile:
Izabela Helbin, from the city’s marketing and promotion office, told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza: “Research shows that gays and lesbians spend significantly more on holidays and entertainment than tourists travelling with family or friends. We plan to make money on this.”
That’s the capitalist spirit!
Club, pub and hotel owners are all for extending a special welcome to gay tourists. “Jesus, yes!” said Thomas Naughton, owner of Irish bar Nic Nowego (Nothing New), adding: “Gay tourists behave a lot better – and they have more money. We were the first place in Kraków to put up signs saying ‘no Stag nights’.”
You can read the full Freethinker story here, but I’m off to gobble some Polish sausage!
Moderate fundamentalism
Last night, the so-called moderate Regent’s Park Mosque was revisited by Channel 4 in Undercover Mosque: the Return. "So-called" because what followed showed anything but.
This was a follow-up to last year’s Undercover Mosque, a Dispatches documentary in which a reporter carried out secret filming in British mosques whose public faces are presented as moderate while, in private, its Muslim preachers campaign against integration into UK society, condemn democracy and praise the Taliban for killing British soldiers.
Last night’s sequel displayed plenty of Islamic hatred and intolerance towards anyone who isn’t Muslim. It showed a female Muslim preacher, Um Saleem, at London’s Regent’s Park Mosque claiming that a Muslim must hate as well as love. This same female preacher waved about an Islamic text, which advocated the killing of ex-Muslims, adulterers, homosexuals and those who support them, and said, “This is a very good book.”
We also saw her talking to non-Muslim schoolchildren and college students, who were visiting the mosque as part of its pretence at promoting integration and understanding. However, as soon as the visitors had left, she started condemning all non-Muslims, saying that Muslims should not integrate with them.
We were shown Saudi religious rulings being handed out in the UK to British Muslim women. We were told of the billions of dollars that the Saudi royal family have been pumping into preaching extremist Islamic teachings throughout the West.
Despite assurances given last year after the exposé of the unacceptable goings on at the Regent’s Park Mosque, we saw that its bookshop was still selling offensive Islamic publications: books of Islamic verdicts (fatwas) and DVDs preaching vile and disgusting views about Islamic punishments, such as chopping people’s hands off, beheadings and crucifixions, and how they should be available all over the world once a Sovereign Islamic State has been created. This is the bookshop that claims to promote peace, respect and tolerance.
While all this is going on behind the mosque’s closed doors, as the documentary clearly showed, British government ministers are laughing and joking and rubbing shoulders with those who run it. Why?
You can see some of the footage from the documentary here at Little Green Footballs.
(We have carried a number of posts mentioning these programmes; you can get to them here, which will take you to all posts that mention it, including this one and any future ones.)
This was a follow-up to last year’s Undercover Mosque, a Dispatches documentary in which a reporter carried out secret filming in British mosques whose public faces are presented as moderate while, in private, its Muslim preachers campaign against integration into UK society, condemn democracy and praise the Taliban for killing British soldiers.
Last night’s sequel displayed plenty of Islamic hatred and intolerance towards anyone who isn’t Muslim. It showed a female Muslim preacher, Um Saleem, at London’s Regent’s Park Mosque claiming that a Muslim must hate as well as love. This same female preacher waved about an Islamic text, which advocated the killing of ex-Muslims, adulterers, homosexuals and those who support them, and said, “This is a very good book.”
We also saw her talking to non-Muslim schoolchildren and college students, who were visiting the mosque as part of its pretence at promoting integration and understanding. However, as soon as the visitors had left, she started condemning all non-Muslims, saying that Muslims should not integrate with them.
We were shown Saudi religious rulings being handed out in the UK to British Muslim women. We were told of the billions of dollars that the Saudi royal family have been pumping into preaching extremist Islamic teachings throughout the West.
Despite assurances given last year after the exposé of the unacceptable goings on at the Regent’s Park Mosque, we saw that its bookshop was still selling offensive Islamic publications: books of Islamic verdicts (fatwas) and DVDs preaching vile and disgusting views about Islamic punishments, such as chopping people’s hands off, beheadings and crucifixions, and how they should be available all over the world once a Sovereign Islamic State has been created. This is the bookshop that claims to promote peace, respect and tolerance.
While all this is going on behind the mosque’s closed doors, as the documentary clearly showed, British government ministers are laughing and joking and rubbing shoulders with those who run it. Why?
You can see some of the footage from the documentary here at Little Green Footballs.
(We have carried a number of posts mentioning these programmes; you can get to them here, which will take you to all posts that mention it, including this one and any future ones.)
Moaning Muslims: Part 963
We all have to dance around Muslim festivals now, it seems. In Bosnia, these bleating religion-soaked idiots are knocking the gay community for having the audacity to hold an LGB event during Ramadan, which has just begun.
Quite apart from the sheer impudence of these people in expecting another group even to consider moving its event at all, they conveniently forget that bloody Ramadan is a movable feast. These prats expect everyone else to arrange their events so as not to coincide with it if Muslims choose to be offended by whatever it is. Which could mean that several different organisations per year could find themselves rearranging their calendars if their activities don't fit in with moaning Muslims' ideas of what is right and proper, whether Ramadan falls in September, December or whenever.
"Queer Sarajevo Festival is to take place in from September 24th to 27th," Pink News tells us. "The Dutch, Canadian and Swiss embassies are among those supporting the event."
The online gay news source goes on to quote Amir Zukic of the Muslim Party of Democratic Action as having told a newspaper, "We respect freedom and tolerance, but the festival is a kind of provocation since it is taking place during Ramadan."
So how is it any more of a provocation for coinciding with one of your cultural events, then, Mr Zukic? If you don't like the coincidence of these events, move your damned festival to somewhere else in the calendar. You're the ones who have chosen to be offended. Who the hell do you think you are?
"We've been preparing the project for the past year and I would not spend my time only to provoke someone," Svetlana Djurkovic, head of the gay and lesbian rights group Association Q, is quoted as saying. "It is a festival of culture and art."
Recent figures indicate that 40 per cent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Muslims, 31% are Orthodox Christians and 15% are Roman Catholics. Which means that it is a Muslim majority country. It is also a potential candidate country for EU membership and, if admitted, it would be the first majority Muslim country in the Union. Gawd 'elp us!
There is an equal age of consent but the EU says discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is "widespread". It's perhaps no surprse that there are no gay bars in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo.
Quite apart from the sheer impudence of these people in expecting another group even to consider moving its event at all, they conveniently forget that bloody Ramadan is a movable feast. These prats expect everyone else to arrange their events so as not to coincide with it if Muslims choose to be offended by whatever it is. Which could mean that several different organisations per year could find themselves rearranging their calendars if their activities don't fit in with moaning Muslims' ideas of what is right and proper, whether Ramadan falls in September, December or whenever.
"Queer Sarajevo Festival is to take place in from September 24th to 27th," Pink News tells us. "The Dutch, Canadian and Swiss embassies are among those supporting the event."
The online gay news source goes on to quote Amir Zukic of the Muslim Party of Democratic Action as having told a newspaper, "We respect freedom and tolerance, but the festival is a kind of provocation since it is taking place during Ramadan."
So how is it any more of a provocation for coinciding with one of your cultural events, then, Mr Zukic? If you don't like the coincidence of these events, move your damned festival to somewhere else in the calendar. You're the ones who have chosen to be offended. Who the hell do you think you are?
"We've been preparing the project for the past year and I would not spend my time only to provoke someone," Svetlana Djurkovic, head of the gay and lesbian rights group Association Q, is quoted as saying. "It is a festival of culture and art."
Recent figures indicate that 40 per cent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Muslims, 31% are Orthodox Christians and 15% are Roman Catholics. Which means that it is a Muslim majority country. It is also a potential candidate country for EU membership and, if admitted, it would be the first majority Muslim country in the Union. Gawd 'elp us!
There is an equal age of consent but the EU says discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is "widespread". It's perhaps no surprse that there are no gay bars in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo.
Sharon Underwood's message
I’ve just come across a post, from early June this year, on the BuckSkin Cafe blog. The letter it’s referring to, from a mother who has a gay son, brought me to tears. And, while I wholeheartedly agree with the belief that Buck (of BuckSkin Cafe) expresses, that “every gay man will benefit from reading it”, I’d go further and say that everyone would benefit, which is why I’m responding to his request:
The piece itself was written by Sharon Underwood, White River Junction, Vermont, USA, and published in April 2000 in the Valley News. Her feelings are very well expressed, and were in response to the many letters that had been sent to the Valley News concerning the “homosexual menace” in Vermont.
At the time, Charles Kaiser wrote in the Advocate:
So, please alert anyone and everyone you can think of to Underwood’s letter and help pass it on.
My good friend Tim and I were talking about the struggle we went through in coming out to family and friends. In our discussion he mentioned this letter. He said it gave him support and encouragement. I think every gay man will benefit from reading it. Please copy and paste the text and e-mail it to your friends. Sharon Underwood's words and story will touch your heart and give you strength in a world that is not always so friendly to gays and lesbians. Please take the time to read this. I think you will be glad you did. Thanks Tim, for sharing this with me.Peace and Love,
Buck of BuckSkin Cafe
__________________******__________________
The piece itself was written by Sharon Underwood, White River Junction, Vermont, USA, and published in April 2000 in the Valley News. Her feelings are very well expressed, and were in response to the many letters that had been sent to the Valley News concerning the “homosexual menace” in Vermont.
I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.
I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or havegestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.
You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.
You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance. How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.
You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin. The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving … to be better human beings than we are?”
Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?
Sharon Underwood.
At the time, Charles Kaiser wrote in the Advocate:
One of the reasons that Vermont became the first state to approve civil unions for gays and lesbians must surely be the presence of splendid citizens like Sharon Underwood of White River Junction. As the single mother of a gay son and two other children, Underwood had kept silent for years in the face of the “standard gay bashing” she heard whenever she went out with friends.
Even her coworkers at the housing manufacturing company where she works didn't know she had a gay child. But in April the anger that had been building up for more than two decades finally burst out of her when she wrote a brilliant 1,000-word polemic for her local paper, Valley News, in West Lebanon, N.H. The 50-year-old computer programmer had never written anything professionally before, but she suddenly discovered the amazing power of her own words.
So, please alert anyone and everyone you can think of to Underwood’s letter and help pass it on.
Monday, 1 September 2008
Interesting things
Interesting things are about to happen. No, I am not thinking about "Big Bang Day", but about the UK’s Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.
There Jean Paul and Keiron are busy making their wedding plans when Jean Paul’s old flame Craig turns up again. His plans will be on hold no doubt and we shall all be in floods of tears. But who can blame Jean Paul for ditching ex-priest Keiron in favour of Craig?
Whatever happens, soap-land has taken another step forward in accepting gay equality.
How Islamic preachers incite murder – in Britain
Last time it was the men calling for gays to be executed in rather unusual ways. This time it's women doing the inciting. The one thing they have in common is that they're all Muslim.
As we reported a while ago, Channel 4's Dispatches series is back with "Undercover Mosque: the Return". And it's on tonight.
Yesterday's Sunday Times has been previewing the programme, and tells us:
A female reporter infiltrated women's study circles for the programme. In one, a woman preacher using the name Umm Amira told followers, “We are not going to be like animals . . . or to be like the homosexuals, God save us from that, you understand? We have to take the judgement, the judgement is to kill them.”
Charming! But we shouldn't be surprised.
As we reported a while ago, Channel 4's Dispatches series is back with "Undercover Mosque: the Return". And it's on tonight.
Yesterday's Sunday Times has been previewing the programme, and tells us:
Women preachers are urging followers at one of Britain’s most influential mosques to kill homosexuals and view all non-Muslims as “vile”, according to a television documentary.
The London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre, known as the Regent’s Park Mosque, is one of the most respected centres for moderate Islam in western Europe.
However, an undercover investigation by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme has found extremist preachers have held study circles there and are teaching followers a hardline version of the faith followed in Saudi Arabia, known as Wahhabism.
A female reporter infiltrated women's study circles for the programme. In one, a woman preacher using the name Umm Amira told followers, “We are not going to be like animals . . . or to be like the homosexuals, God save us from that, you understand? We have to take the judgement, the judgement is to kill them.”
Charming! But we shouldn't be surprised.
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