Pink Humanist #2 online now

The UK gay Humanist charity, the Pink Triangle Trust – owner of this blog – has announced the publication of the second issue of its online magazine The Pink Humanist. The first issue appeared online last December.The PTT says in a press release:

“The Pink Humanist is an LGBT magazine for Atheists, Humanists, Sceptics and Freethinkers and is the only one of its kind worldwide. It is edited by Barry Duke, a co-founder of the UK Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) in 1979 and a long-standing editor of The Freethinker, the voice of atheism in the UK since 1881.

“In the latest issue journalist Andy Armitage [your humble blogger] writes about Godly quacks persisting in promoting harmful and discredited ‘gay cure’ therapies. Other contributors include veteran gay activist and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who poses the question ‘After homophobia, what next?’, Brett Humphreys, a mathematician who writes a penetrating article about Alan Turing in the centenary year of this gay atheist code-breaker’s birth, and an Albanian gay activist who shows how this once ultra homophobic communist country has taken a leap into the 21st century.”

Sergeant in arms

Five months after the US military's ban on openly gay service personnel expired, a heartwarming photograph showing a marine kissing his male partner at his homecoming in Hawaii has gone viral.

On his Facebook page, Sgt Brandon Morgan posted the picture (left) – which shows him embracing and kissing his partner, Dalan Wells – and, in a very short time, it went viral. Already the photograph has received going on for 20,000 likes on Facebook and almost 4,000 comments.

Sgt Morgan says he and his partner are overwhelmed at the response they've received. Writing earlier, he said:

I wanted to make one post for all of the great people i have made friends with after the picture of my partner and I went viral. I have gotten so many emails, messages and friend requests I can barely keep up with it all. I wanted to say thank you for all the comments and inspirational messages I have received. [...] Also, and this is important. For everyone we have inspired through the picture, know this. I am honored you view as a hero. My partner and I are overwhelmed to be such an inspiration. Remember though, that you being who you are is an inspiration to others as well. Heros are made when you make a choice [...] remember you paved the way for me to be able to post the picture in the first place. While I might be your hero because I have made the media. You have been my heros all along.

Up until September 2011, openly gay men and women were banned from serving in the US military.

Don’t like praying? Then don’t be a councillor!

A councillor who walked out of a meeting to avoid the obligatory prayers was told by members of the public present that he shouldn’t have become a councillor if he didn’t want to say prayers.

This is according to Britain’s National Secular Society (NSS), which has been fighting to get this nonsense stopped for ages now. It doesn’t, as far as I can tell, object to prayers per se, but not as part, albeit that they come at the start, of meetings, which should be secular.

And that makes sense of course: it allows people who don’t wish to say Christian prayers, for a variety of reasons, not to have to take part in this pointless ritual; it means a meeting can get going at three o’clock sharp (or whatever) without having some babbling idiot spout mumbo-jumbo.

And prayers, for those who want them, could be said at 2.50 in an anteroom, or several anterooms to cater for those of different religious persuasions. No problem.

The latest story concerns Sandbach Town Council in Cheshire. Cllr Richard Hoffman walked out, and told the NSS: “As I was leaving the room I was verbally abused by three members of the public saying I should be ashamed of myself, and that I shouldn’t have stood for the council if I didn’t want to say prayers.”

So there are people who actually believe you must be religious if you want to serve your community as a town (or county) councillor.

The NSS report continues: “The town mayor Dennis Robinson is reported to have told the local Crewe Chronicle that removing traditional prayers would be an ‘attack on Christianity’. He opened Thursday’s meeting by saying: ‘Anyone who wishes to leave may do so now.’”

And Hoffman duly did, it seems, and got a bollocking for it from members of the public.

A neighbouring authority, Middlewich Town Council, says it’s taken prayers off the agenda and will hold them five minutes before meetings officially starts.

So it can be done, see?

Gays are paedophiles? Yeah, yeah …

Someone in Australia has been a very silly boy. A young politician, 19-year-old Peter Watson, has been expelled from the Aussie Labour Party there for homophobic rants – including linking homosexuality with paedophilia – on the Internet.

This is how ABC News, linked to above, quotes this naïve chappie:

“I said that homosexuality and paedophilia were linked because there’s been some research done … and it’s been published by the Catholic Church, that suggests that 30 per cent of male paedophiles are homosexual.” (Which means that 70 per cent are heterosexual, presumably. And published by the Catholic Church, no less! Right, bound to be bang on, then.)

“I made the comments, so I do agree with it.” (But of course you would.)

“These comments I made about homosexuals were made when I was like 14, 15 years old, so we’re talking about four, five years ago.” (Oh, are you now backing away from the comments, then?)

“[But] I do agree in some sense.” (Ah, just some sense now. Which sense would that be, then? Not common sense on your part, that's for sure.)

He’s been talking to ABC Radio’s AM programme, in which he says, among other things, that homosexuality devalues society, and you can hear the interview here and read a transcript.

And there’s a video on the first link above. Go and hiss and boo.

Right-wing nutjobs go on and on about gay marriage – again

The Christian homophobes are a real hoot. They’ve launched a new organisation today called the Coalition for Marriage (read “Coalition for Traditional, Man–Woman, Normal, Proper, Good, God-approved, Bible-approved, Decent, Seemly, Acceptable-To-All-Right-Thinking-People Marriage”).

Behind it are a pair of the usual suspects: the former Archbish of Cant, George Carey, and the Christian Institute.

You can read about Peter Tatchell’s views on the new coalition here.

And in the Daily Mail today, Carey says – get this – “The state does not own marriage . . .”

Quite. And nor does the church. Oh, hang on a minute . . .

“The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way.”

OK, so who does own marriage, then, apart from the couples concerned?

As for ownership – or lack of it – by the state, you seem to have been happy for centuries for the state to legitimise marriage by recognising opposite-sex unions in law. If the state doesn’t own marriage, why have you not objected to the state’s interference in what should be an arrangement between one person and another (and, you would no doubt wish me to add, God)?

And Colin Hart of the right-wing Christian Institute says in the same article: “The word marriage is woven into the fabric of our national laws. That can’t be just unpicked in a single stroke.”

But it can, Mr Hart, it can. Governments “unpick” all the time when one piece of legislation overturns another – whether it’s been there for centuries, years or months.

Let us pray! Will those in favour say aye …

If the UK government doesn’t like something that the courts have ruled on, in spite of often championing the justice system here, it will just trample all over it.

It makes a mockery of the justice system if all it takes when, in this case, God-bothering idiot ministers can just – effectively – reverse a decision of the High Court.

We reported on 10 February how the National Secular Society had scored a victory against a Devon town council – Bideford – which insisted, along with so many other local authorities, on having Christian prayers as part of the meeting, whether members present were Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jedi or of no religion whatever.

Let’s be clear first about what the NSS wanted: no prayers as part of the meeting (they’re usually held just before business begins, but nonetheless as part of the official proceedings). The NSS seems to have no objection to prayers held elsewhere in the council offices before the meeting begins.

Not only does this get over inflicting this mumbo-jumbo on people who don’t want it – or forcing them to come into the meeting late, and get a raised eyebrow from the mayor or chair – but it simply allows those who wish to pray to do so, among like-minded people, without knowing there are others in the meeting who are quietly mocking this quick chat with sky fairies.

Now, after that victory, our bloody government has decided to hurry forth a measure – part of the Localism Act – that will let councils ignore the ruling and just get on with the prayers, and anyone who finds it an embarrassment can just put up with it.

This measure is being fast-tracked by Eric Pickles, laughingly called the Communities Secretary – although, being a lard-arsed Tory, would not really know much about genuine community (the very word community would probably smack too much of socialism).

This is what the idiot Pickles says about it: “By effectively reversing that illiberal ruling, we are striking a blow for localism over central interference, for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism, for Parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism, and for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness.”

The italics are mine. Just ponder on the adjectives, the clichés, the sleight of mouth with such terms as “central interference” (what’s he doing now but using central interference?). Then there’s intolerant secularism. Is any form of secularism not intolerant in his mind?

As for “illiberal”, if Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, on which the judge based his judgment last week, is illiberal, why has it been allowed to remain on the Statute Book for 40 years?

These bozos won’t be happy till we’re living in a virtual theocracy.

Freedom to be dotty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dawkins on militant secularism

Further to yesterday's post about Baroness Warsi and her trip to La-La Land, her encouragement to us all to embrace religion and her talk of so-called militant secularism, there's an interview with Richard Dawkins embedded below that you might like.

The main point he makes – for me, at any rate – is this: secularism is not atheism. He emphasises that there are religionists among secularists. All secularism seeks to do is kick religion out of the pubic square.

Its inclusion, big time, is exemplified in this country, the UK, of course, by the fact that we have an established church in the form of the Church of England, and it gets included in all kinds of aspects of public life, be it a coronation, a state funeral, a memorial, even the opening of each day's session of Parliament.

Only this week have we seen a victory by secularism over having religion forced on us when a judgment ruled that it was illegal for local councils to hold prayers at the start of – and that means as part of – council meetings.

The religionists began to beat their chests, and their drums, and possibly the nearest secularist, of course, saying Christianity was being sidelined. The National Secular Society was quick to point out that it has no objection to prayers, just not those that are part of an official meeting of an official secular body whose membership is likely to include people of other religions and of none.

By all means pray, it said, but do it in an anteroom before the council meeting begins, and people can then decide whether or not to join in.

That is what is meant by taking religion out of the public square, not damning it to obscurity, not telling others they can't practise it. People should be free to practise whatever religion they wish to, and many of them, fortunately, recognise that some of us don't wish to, and that we should not have it rammed at us from all sides when we wish to go about our secular business.

So, when religionists try to tell you that secularists are attempting to outlaw religion, or at least marginalise it, you can tell them where to stuff their religion. If they don't try to tell you that, you can wish them all happiness in their beliefs as long as they don't try to inflict them on you.

Poor, poor religion!

So religion is under threat from “militant secularisation”, is it? It’s being “sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere”, according to the Conservative co-chair Baroness Warsi, in an article in the Daily Telegraph.

This Muslim peer is off to La-La Land – sorry, the Vatican – to give a speech there. I bet she’s happy to be meeting the Pope, coming, as she does, from a religion that eschews any other religion and considers all but Muslims to be infidels.

But what’s this nonsense about religion being under threat? How? Well, obviously, she means its special status is under threat. Secularism is no threat to religion itself. It just wants to see it kicked out of privileged positions.

The only threat to religion is that it’s had its day and is in its death throes in many areas, because people don’t believe the fairy stories. So don’t worry your pretty little head about it, dearie. Go and find another plaything.

She says in her Telegraph piece: “I will be arguing [in the Vatican meeting] that to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds.”

Illogical. That implies that, without religion, society cannot become more just.

Try taking from society the rampant capitalism you and your party and every other mainstream party espouse to the detriment of ordinary people and a just society, and you might just get that just society.

She gives examples of what she calls “militant secularisation”: “when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere”.

But that’s just putting religion in its place, dear. Why should religious schools be funded by the taxpayer? Why should government buildings favour one religion over another in what they display for all visitors to see?

As for what people are allowed to wear, this seems to vary from one situation to another. A nurse was told a couple of years ago to remove a cross or crucifix hanging from her neck by a chain. It wasn’t because it was a religions symbol but because it could represent a danger if a desperate patient made a grab for it during a sudden spasm or movement. There are dress codes in some jobs, and it wouldn’t just be a Christian cross or an Islamic crescent (do they wear that sort of thing?) that would be banned, but any form of bling pinned to one’s dress or jacket.

Nope. It’s just the same old bleatings of religionists with an axe to grind. Poor ickle “faiths”! Are the big bully-wullies of secularism defeating them with rational argument, then? Aw, diddums!

It’s time these people got a life. If they exerted half as much energy to make the world a better place as they do trying to push fantasy into the mainstream, they might earn their huge salaries and expense accounts.

Gay humanists’ fury over nasty Uganda bill

The UK gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) – owner of this blog – says it’s appalled to learn that Uganda’s new parliament is expected to debate the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was first introduced as a private member’s bill by MP David Bahati in October 2009. Bahati is an evangelical Christian and a member of the Fellowship Foundation, also known as the Family, a US-based Christian and political organisation which arranges the annual prestigious National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

If enacted, the bill would greatly broaden the criminalisation of homosexuality by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, are HIV-positive, or engage in same-sex acts with people under 18 years of age. The bill also includes provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of Uganda, asserting that they may be extradited for punishment back to Uganda, and includes penalties for individuals, companies, media organisations, or non-governmental organisations that support LGBT rights.

The PTT’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “We are appalled that after such a long time this heinous piece of legislation may still become law. Much of the homophobic bigotry which is rife in Uganda and other African countries emanates from religious sources, including US evangelical Christians.

“It certainly emanates from the Anglican Church of Uganda which states on its website [PDF]: ‘The Church of Uganda appreciates the spirit of the Bill’s objective of protecting the family, especially in light of a growing propaganda to influence younger people to accept homosexuality as a legitimate way of expressing human sexuality. We particularly appreciate the objectives of the Bill which seek to: provide for marriage in Uganda as contracted only between a man and woman; prohibit and penalize homosexual behaviour and related practices in Uganda as they constitute a threat to the traditional family; prohibit ratification of any international treaties, conventions, protocols, agreements and declarations which are contrary or inconsistent with the provisions of the Act; prohibit the licensing of organizations which promote homosexuality.’

“Unfortunately,” Broadhead continues, “the vast majority of the population are Christian and clearly greatly influenced by these malign Bible-based policies.”

A whinge and a prayer

Here’s something Britain’s National Secular Society has been fighting for for yonks: an end to prayers before council meetings.

And it’s got its way, having fought a town council in Devon in the courts.

It will have repercussions for councils all over the country now, of course.

As you would expect, Christians aren’t too pleased that this ritual has been outlawed. One whinges that the ruling is “bizarre”.

The NSS fought it on human-rights grounds, but Justice Ouseley ruled it was unlawful on technical grounds

Prayers, he said, were not lawful under Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972. “Mr Justice Ouseley said the prayers were unlawful because there was no statutory power permitting the practice to continue,” says the Beeb.

You can read the full story on the BBC website here.

No pardon for Alan Turing

The UK government, in its wisdom, has decided not to offer a posthumous pardon to the wartime code breaker Alan Turing after he was convicted of something called gross indecency.

There was a petition with some 23,000 signatures, triggering an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons – but to no avail, it seems.

You can read the story here.