Stuff and nonsense – oh, and a Happy New Year!

It’s New Year’s Eve and here’s wishing a Happy New Year to all readers and contributors to Pink Triangle.

We’ve been a bit quiet over the Christmas holidays, posting the occasional piece linking to articles in the latest issue of our sister publication, the online Gay & Lesbian Humanist.

Today I’m recommending a bit of stuff and nonsense to end the year. One of our occasional contributors, and one we hope to see more of, is Steven Dean, who brings his own cheeky, not to say outrageous, view to matters of the moment with startling naïveté.

He’s talking about television, and what a force for good it is (some of us might disagree).

“Typically,” he writes in a meticulously researched article worthy of an academic journal, “our viewing week will include a cookery show (perhaps Freaky Eaters), political debate (say Naked in Westminster), travel show (Sex Around the World is a must), financial programme (100 Percent Sex is far better than listening to the doom-and-gloom-laden [BBC economics correspondent] Robert Peston) and a relationship series (Snog Marry Avoid or Sex . . . with Mum & Dad are both excellent). We do know how to let our hair down, too, and always try to make time for a good talent show (Viva’s Pants Off, Dance Off is much better than the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing) or an old-fashioned drama (something with a good story to it, like Cock-Hungry Straight Boys).”

Well, that’s quite enough of that, but, if you really insist on reading the full article, you can find it by clicking here.



Click the logo above to get to the magazine’s cover, which has a great image that sums up the “God-damned” theme of this issue.

Hope you’ve had a great Christmas, everyone, and accept our best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

We’ll be getting back to a normal service from 4 January.

Unfinished business

It’s always interesting to look back and compare then with now. All too often, it’s hard to tell the difference. In matters gay, there’s still a lot of “unfinished business”, and that’s reflected in an article of that name in the latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist.

It’s in a regular feature called “Out of Print” – i.e. out of the print edition of the magazine (in this case one that appeared in winter 2002) – and in it Antony Grey looks back to the days of the Homosexual Law Reform Society and the Albany Trust; he was secretary of both of them.

Grey concludes:

Maybe I’m still too trapped in the battles of the past. In these more relaxed days, younger gay folk’s open pursuit of hedonistic pleasure is all very well, but more widespread commitment to passionate campaigning is still required – not just for ourselves, but for the sake of the many adolescents growing up gay who are still faced with homophobia at school, and sometimes at home, too.

Half a century on, there is still much unfinished business for gay rights campaigners.

Read the full article by clicking here. There’s also the usual fascinating mix of news and views.



Things will be a bit quieter on the blog till 4 January, but we’ll post the occasional link to an article in G&LH.

Hope you’ve been enjoying Christmas. And here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!

Kill Bill!

Many would like to see the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill killed off. But will it happen? And why are so many Christians silent on the issue – with the Archbishops of Canterbury (belatedly) and York (very belatedly) speaking out only after worldwide clamour?

In the latest Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the Christian writer and activist Symon Hill looks at the issues in an article written before the two archbishops finally realised they couldn’t not say anything and hope to hold onto their credibility.

“When Ugandan politician David Bahati proposed his Anti-Homosexuality Bill recently, he may have given little thought to the effect it would have on his allies in Britain,” Hill writes. “But, in seeking to respond to the Bill, antigay Christians in the UK have shown themselves to be confused, divided and plainly out of touch with Christian, as well as public, opinion.

Those British Christians who regard all homosexual activity as unethical have long insisted that they are not prejudiced. They say they are criticising a behaviour, not a group of people, and that they do not want gay people to be persecuted.”

However, he says, the sincerity of that stance “is now being put to the test”.

Read the full article by clicking here. There’s also the usual fascinating mix of news and views.



Things will be a bit quieter on the blog till 4 January, but we’ll post the occasional link to an article in G&LH.

Hope you’ve been enjoying Christmas. And here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!

Is it Christmas, Yule, the festive season or just the holidays?

Was Christmas Day good for you? Do you, indeed, call this time of the year “Christmas”, or do you prefer a name that doesn’t connote religion?

American Zack Ford loves Christmas.

“I can’t help the fact that I was raised by a Christian family in a Christian home,” he writes. “What I can help is what I believe (or in my case, what I don’t). And, even though I don’t care at all about virgin births or any other such nonsense, there is a lot of cultur around the holiday season that I can and do appreciate. In fact, I love Xmastime.”

So, although he’s a fervent atheist, he loves all the stuff that surrounds Christmas.

You can read his article here. And you can also read my own article, “Yule be sorry”, from last Christmas, in which I make some similar points, concluding that we should keep the “Christ” in “Christmas” – but only as a syllable.



Click the logo above to get to the magazine’s cover, which has a great image that sums up the “God-damned” theme of this issue.

Hope you’re having a great Christmas (or Yule or holiday time or festive season), everyone, and accept our best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

BBC at the end of (its?) time

If you’re reading this at the time it’s been published (6 p.m. British time on Friday, 25 December 2009) – which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is Christmas Day – then shame on you!

Get thee to a television set and tune to BBC1 (before the Tories dismantle it, more of which below) for the swansong – beginning now, at 6 o’clock – of the man who reinvented Doctor Who and ensured it became regular Christmas Day fare, gay atheist Russell T Davies.

Well, it’s his swansong as far as Doctor Who is concerned. He’s working in America now, and that’s where another for whom this is a swansong – David Tennant – is spending a lot of his time.

Tennant has played the Doctor since 2005. Tonight’s episode, and that of New Year’s Day, The End of Time, Parts 1 and 2, are his last, and the last for Davies, who’s been chief writer and executive producer since 2003.

Stephen Moffat is the new supremo, and the new Doctor is Matt Smith, whose debut as the Time Lord will be in spring 2010.

And it’s rather ironic that, on a day held in awe by Christians, a gay atheist has created what will be the biggest televisual event of the day.

The BBC, though, may become a tiny shadow of its current self if the Tories get their way. This is Davies’s warning reported in the UK’s Daily Mirror this week.

He has a lot of time for the Beeb, but is worried that it will all but disappear.

“It’s going to be appalling. Jeremy Hunt [shadow Culture Secretary] has absolutely attacked the licence fee and then suddenly, a few weeks ago, he backtracked and said, ‘Oh no, we won’t interfere with the charter.’

“They want the votes but once they get in they are going to be absolutely vicious. I think the BBC has got five or six years left.

“They’ll dismantle it slowly. It’ll get smaller and smaller until it just supports Radio 4 and some news.”

Well, we’ve all had our criticisms of the BBC, and it’s certainly had its moments of apparent homophobia (if only, as here, through carelessness), but would any of us really wish to see it go?

The Tories reckon the licence fee is a tax. Actually, no one has to watch television, and, if they choose not to have a set in their home, there’s no compulsion to buy a licence, but that small fact seems to escape so many people.

“They’ll freeze the licence fee,” he tells the Mirror, and persuade [Tory-leaning] Daily Mail readers it’s the right thing to do by saying they’re getting rid of all those digital channels they don’t watch; that’s the language they’ll use.

“I think politicians only experience broadcasting through their own prism, through [speech-based Radio 4’s] Today programme and through the interviews they do. They don’t sit down and watch [the soaps] Coronation Street or EastEnders. They don’t live for television like the rest of us.

“It’ll go slowly, because if someone stood up and said, ‘We’re going to get rid of the BBC tomorrow,’ the heartland of Britain would rise up. But things do disappear – look at the way children’s programmes went from ITV: they just slipped away quietly.

“When the politicians meet their constituents it’s the last thing they’ll talk about. The campaigns will be about hospitals and prisons and schools – not television. That’ll be very low down the list. No one’s going to win or lose an election because of television – but it is a huge part of our culture.”

So enjoy Doctor Who. And enjoy the BBC while you can.

Merry Christmas, folks!

Pink Triangle will be a bit quieter over the next few days, but we’ll be keeping you updated on a few features in our sister publication, Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the latest issue of which went live before Christmas.

The theme is “God-damned”, and the message is clear: we are.

God-damned, that is.

The lead article is by Roy W Brown, who is the immediate past president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and IHEU’s main representative at the UN, Geneva.

His message is that Islam wants to take over the world. He examines how our freedoms are under threat as creeping Islamisation demands more and more, putting our very way of life in jeopardy.

All in the name of God – or in that case Allah – of course. However you look at it, we’re God-damned.



Click the logo above to get to the magazine’s cover, which has a great image that sums up the “God-damned” theme of this issue.

Have a great Christmas, everyone, and accept our best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

Arbishop of York speaks out on Bahati Boy’s Bill – but what took him so long?

At last, the Archbishop of York has now condemned the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. What took John Sentamu so damned long?

The world was aghast at the sheer evil of the measure from Ugandan MP David “Bahati Boy” Bahati, which calls for the execution of gays in some circumstances, and the imprisonment of those who know of gay relationships but don’t tell the authorities.

It took the Archbishop of Canterbury a while to get around to criticising, and York’s office said he wouldn’t be commenting. But now, it seems, he has.

“I’m opposed to the death sentence,” said Sentamu on Radio 4’s Today programme today. That’s big of him. “I’m also not happy when you describe people in the kind of language you find in this Private Member’s Bill.”

He added it seemed not only victimising but also “a diminishment of the individuals concerned”.

But, says the BBC, Sentamu, himself Ugandan, also pointed out that the current law in Uganda already had provision for the same measures proposed in the new Bill. So does that make it easier for him to speak out – because similar measures already exist? Or would he like to see an end of all measures against gay people?

Stay in the closet, says PR guru

The British PR guru, Max Clifford, is advising gay soccer players to remain in the closet. His advice follows the coming-out of the most capped Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas.

But Clifford says he could not imagine a Premiership footballer doing the same. He says he’s counselled gay soccer players that their careers would be ruined if they came out.

Yet, in Thomas’s case, his player colleagues were OK about the revelation. Who’s to say soccer players wouldn’t be?

But, then, you’re dealing with a more yobbish element among soccer supporters than among rugby supporters, which is probably part of what lies behind Clifford’s thinking.

While I can appreciate that a player wants to keep his career, he would be doing a far more noble thing to come out and encourage others to do the same. If we take Clifford’s advice, no player will ever come out, and being gay will continue to be seen as something intrinsically wrong.

I’m put in mind of Justin Fashanu, the (so far) only prominent soccer player to come out. He ended up committing suicide after being accused in the States of sexual assault against a 17-year-old youth. In his suicide note, Fashanu said the sex was consensual.

As we said a few days ago over Gareth Thomas’s coming-out, it’s a dreadful state of affairs when people have to choose between their careers and being honest with the world around them; being free to be who they are; being able to have a relationship openly without having to hide it. And some, no doubt, simply deny themselves sexual gratification, probably even suppress their sexuality, leading, potentially, to all kinds of psychological problems.

However, while (not exclusively, but chiefly) religionists continue to obsess about the “wrongness” of being gay, what can we expect?

Latest G&LH now online, showing how we live in a God-damned world

The latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist is now online, and I’m posting this on behalf of Mike, the editor. We hope you’ll look in, perhaps send us a letter if there’s anything you like – or even don’t like! Happy Christmas from all of us to all of you.

Here is the news release that went out yesterday:

God-damned
The latest issue of the gay humanist magazine Gay & Lesbian Humanist (http://www.gayandlesbianhumanist.org/) is now online with the unwavering message that we are all God-damned.

Everywhere we look, the religious bigots are trying to ram what they call the true meaning of Christmas down our throats, while totally ignoring the fact that “Christmas” has existed in many forms since ancient times.

Unfortunately, however, the crushing nature of religion isn’t confined to Christmas. Just as phoney is their talk about peace on earth, while religious ideological wars continue in the name of peace and true gods. We need look no further than the Middle East to see the misery and mayhem being caused in the name of God, Allah or Whatever. In fact, many parts of the world appear God-damned!

Islamic menace
Our feature article this time is by ROY W BROWN, who is the immediate past president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and IHEU main representative at the UN, Geneva. Brown warns about how Islam is taking over the world; how Muslims are making claims for special treatment in British schools, hospitals and the workplace, and want to impose Sharia law for the settlement of family disputes. He rightly warns of the grave threat Islam poses to our very way of life. You only have to look at any country where Islam is in control to see where we are headed. In such places, murder and mutilation are daily occurrences and freedom and human rights are gone.

The Islamic menace is not just confined to Britain, but is widespread throughout Europe and beyond. Neither is it driven by chance, but is part of an international campaign, orchestrated by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which demands the worldwide acceptance and adoption of Islamic norms and values.

If we don’t stamp out this creeping canker very soon, Britain and the rest of Europe will be God-damned, too.

Gay-murder menace
Christianity has been showing its true colours recently in Archbishop Rowan Williams’s reluctance to speak out over the proposed gay murder bill in Uganda. SYMON HILL takes a detailed look at what has been happening there, and asks why the church seems quite happy with state murder of gay people. Given the church’s long and bloody history, some of us are not the least surprised by its acquiescence in a gay-murder bill. More worrying still is that this evangelical menace is spreading, as, in “World Watch”, GEORGE BROADHEAD reports of similar proposals now being aired in Rwanda.

Gospel thugs
Religious fundamentalism holds sway elsewhere in Africa, too. LEO IGWE describes how, in Nigeria, in July of this year, a large group of Christian thugs from the Liberty Gospel Church trashed a public symposium on witchcraft and child rights at the Cultural Centre in Calabar Cross River State. Igwe was himself assaulted by the gospel thugs and had his glasses broken.

Holy bullies
Continuing our theme on the threat of aggressive religionism, “Blogwatch”, this time, is presented by ALVIN McEWEN, whose book Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters has done so much to expose the lies of the American religious right. His blog, of the same name, continues this vital work. McEwen explains that the phoney image of the LGBT community as evil outsiders looking to gain influence via indoctrination and deception is an intentional fabrication of “pro-family” or “traditional morality” groups.

Competition
On the cover of this issue of G&LH appear some words from a song called “Goddamned” by JAY BRANNAN. As a little thank you to our readers for their support, we are running a competition to win Jay Brannan’s album of the same name, Goddamned. The whole lyric of the song appears on the competition page, and I think you will agree it is extremely apposite to both this issue’s theme and the perilous state our world is in today.

Atheist Christmas and Santa in Heaven
Can you be an atheist and enjoy Christmas? ZACK FORD tells us why even though he’s an atheist, he loves this holiday period. Meanwhile, NEIL RICHARDSON asks, “Do you believe in Father Christmas?” Richardson says he is struck by the similarity between believing in Father Christmas and believing in God.

Warm your cockles!
As I sit here typing in what is a very chilly office, summer days seem very far away. If you’re feeling the cold and damp where you are, too, you will like MARTIN LEWIS’s cockle-warming look at a few of last summer’s Pride events from around the world. And STEPHEN BLAKE takes a look at TLA’s new bad-boy rites-of-passage film, Shank.

Freethought?
Most of us believe we are freethinkers, but what exactly is freethought, and what qualifies you as a freethinker? WARREN ALLEN SMITH shares a few examples of individuals in Philosopedia who have been described by various “freethinking” labels.

In our “Out of Print” feature, we reproduce an article by ANTONY GREY, first published in the Winter 2002 issue of G&LH, that looks at the history of gay-law reform in the UK.

IAN STEWART tells us something about a presentation to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the publishers Thames and Hudson – held at the London School of Economics (LSE) – discussing recent exciting developments in the function of museums.

It’s been a busy year for the Stockholm-based Nordic Rainbow Humanists (NRH), and BILL SCHILLER reports on what’s been happening.

As usual, ANDY ARMITAGE has been on the blog and gives us his report on what’s been happening over at our sister publication, Pink Triangle.

If you thought quality television is a thing of the past, and that Lord Reith is spinning in his grave, think again! According to STEVEN DEAN, quality viewing on the box has never been better, as can be judged by a typical week’s viewing for he and his gran.

Finally, catch up on what’s been happening in our regular “News Watch” comment on selected recent news stories.

To see the latest free issue of G&LH, go to http//www.gayandlesbianhumanist.org

Happy reading!
Mike Foxwell
Editor, G&LH

And I can add that there’s an excellent short story to chill you at Christmas. It’s by Bram Stoker of Dracula fame, it’s called “The Judge’s House”, and it’s a real chiller. It’s on the first page you’ll come to once you’ve hit the “Enter” button. Just sit back and listen. It’s in two parts, to give you a chance to pause it and go and replenish your glass. You’ll need it! It’s been adapted, read and produced by Andrew John of Celtica Radio. Enjoy!

Shoplifting is OK, says priest

Tim Jones, a Church of England priest at St Lawrence and St Hilda in York, has said that shoplifting from large chain stores is OK. He said, “Let my words not be misrepresented as a simplistic call for people to shoplift. The observation that shoplifting is the best option that some people are left with is a grim indictment of who we are.

“Rather, this is a call for our society no longer to treat its most vulnerable people with indifference and contempt. Providing inadequate or clumsy social support is monumental, catastrophic folly.”

So, is it also OK to steal from wealthy churches like the Church of England and the Roman Catholic church?

God-damned!

Now I’ve heard it all!

Angels, you’ll be interested to know, can’t fly. And how have I come by this startlingly important, world-saving piece of vital information? In the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

And how did the Telegraph come by it? Well, a scientist – a real scientist, being paid – has come up with this after studying flight characteristics of birds and other stuff.

“Angels depicted heralding the birth of Jesus in nativity scenes across the world are anatomically flawed, according to a scientist who claims they would never be able to fly,” we are informed.

“A leading biologist has compared the physiology of flighted species with the representations of spiritual and mythical creatures in art and found the angels and fairies that sit atop of Christmas trees did not get there under their own steam.”

This guy who seems to have too much time on his hands is Professor Roger Wotton, of University College, London, who has found that flight would be impossible for angels portrayed with arms and birdlike feathered wings. Now, if this information is just a by-product of something important, such as designing the next generation of airborne transport, then I apologise, but the fact that the Telegraph has seen fit to print it seems to be a waste of column inches.

And centimetres, too.

“Even a cursory examination of the evidence in representational arts shows that angels and cherubs cannot take off and cannot use powered flight,” says Wotton. “And even if they used gliding flight, they would need to be exposed to very high wind velocities at take off – such high winds that they would be blown away and have no need for wings.”

The paper says that the power of angels to capture the imagination is so strong that a survey last year revealed that most Americans believe in them. Well, knowing the religious persuasions of most Americans, that’s not exactly surprising, is it?

That study came from the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, which found that 68 per cent of the 36,000 adults polled thought that angels and demons were at work in the world.

Oh, Jesus Christ on a stick, leave it out! The world is being torn apart by religious differences (as you can see from a glance at the latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist, which is now online*), and we are truly God-damned.

Why not a study to highlight this, and show up religion for what it is: divisive, controlling and in many cases plain evil. Yes, yes, yes, people do good things in its name, but people do good things without it, too. They’re good people.
__________
* If you find yourself reading this post beyond early February 2010, you'll find yourself directed to what will then be the current issue, but you can navigate your way to the December 2009 one from the archive link.

Tiptoeing around horror

Why do we tiptoe around “cultural” matters as if we were treading on eggshells?

It’s not often I agree with the Daily Mail, but an article by Liz Jones caught my eye, and it concerns just such attitudes, and how authorities in the UK care more for the sensitivities of racial, cultural and religious groups than about the victims of their closed-mindedness.

She cites the murder (saying “I refuse to dignify the crime with the word ‘honour’ ”) of Tulay Gorem by her father, because she was dating the “wrong” boy.

She talks of how the girl’s mother was too afraid to speak out.

The policing of crimes that are “alien” to our culture (there is also the nasty practice of female genital mutilation) needs to be far tougher, if the training video shown to officers who deal with such matters is anything to go by.

I wish, when I was stopped for speeding, that I had been treated with such care for my feelings.

Tulay Goren repeatedly told police in the days before her death that she was being threatened. When she refused to go home, police divulged her whereabouts to her family and allowed them to persuade her to return to them. Later, police travelled to Kurdistan on a lovely jaunt to learn about local “honour codes” as they built their case, a luxury that was far too little, too late.

Social workers, too, are terrified of upsetting people who are clearly monsters, because of their race and religion. This was obviously the case in the murder of Victoria Climbié when so-called professionals failed to interfere, dazzled by respect for something they mistook as “culture” (there’s an overused word if ever there was one) when in fact it was just plain old “cruelty”.

She adds later, “Far too often we are afraid to criticise, to police, to lay blame because we fear we will be branded racist [. . .] Surely there are times when race, nationality and religion must take second place to decency, to what is right. Let’s stop this molly-coddling of ‘culture’. Now.”

Hear, hear!

A light in the darkness

African Christianity is a terrible world for gay people, as we’ve seen with recent stories about Uganda and Rwanda.

But homosexuality was around in those parts before Christian missionaries went in and preached Bible literalism.

It’s Bible literalists who conveniently forget that the Bible condones all kinds of things they might frown on these days, slavery being one of them, cruel and unusual punishments another.

So it’s refreshing to read an African writer in Britain’s Guardian, Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Nigerian activist, whose article of a few days ago concludes:

Some conservative Christians are obsessed with reading the Bible literally, trying to reconcile conflicting texts which are against one another. They read Genesis, Leviticus and St Paul and claim that certain verses prove that God judges and condemns everyone who engages in any form of same-sex activity. On the basis of this reading, countries like Uganda propose introducing life imprisonment and the death penalty for gay people. Schism and heresy are nothing in comparison with somebody using the Good Book as such a terrifying weapon against us. That is the greatest blasphemy against God.

He’s a Christian, and a gay one to boot, so you would expect him to take this line. But it often takes someone from outside the closed bigoted mindset of the loopy end of Christianity to shine a light on the subject.

Green out-Greens Green

Stephen “Birdshit” Green has outdone even Stephen “Birdshit” Green this time.

He actually supports the death penalty for gays as laid out in Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Green – who heads some potty little outfit called Christian Voice, which gets more than its fair share of publicity when people who don’t get airtime and column inches have more important and interesting things to say – is reported in a story in Wales on Sunday to have said, “As a Christian I agree with the death penalty and I don’t see why infecting someone with HIV should be treated in any other way than if you killed someone with a knife. It is extraordinary to think it is OK to infect someone else with HIV and get away with it.”

How about infecting people with views such as yours, you bloody moron?

Britain’s laws, says this excuse for a human being, “promote perversion” because they do not make homosexuality a criminal offence, and capital punishment is OK because God ordains it in the Bible.

Oh, yeah? Who told you that, then. Well, the Bible did. Inerrant, is it? Yes. How do you know? Because it’s the word of God. How do you know that, then? Well, the Bible says so . . .

One commenter says under that story, “Any individual who can prove that being taught as a youngster the messages this evil man is creating, has caused emotional, psychological, and/or physical harm, should be supported in seeking legal redress.

“Likewise any person who is harmed in any way by another person acting in faith in Mr Green’s teachings should also be encouraged to seek redress from Mr Green.”

Coming out in sport

What a state we’re in when a person has to go through what this rugby player had to go through just because he’s gay.

The whole sorry saga is reported by the BBC, which tells how the former Wales and Lions rugby captain Gareth Thomas “has broken one of the major taboos that surround sport” by revealing he is gay.

The 35-year-old joins stars like basketball’s John Amaechi and hurling’s Donal Og Cusack who have come out.

“Just because you are gay, it doesn’t mean you fancy every man who walks the planet,” Thomas told the Daily Mail.

And of course he’s right. But to hear antigay bigots speak you’d think that homosexuality was different from heterosexuality in that hetties are discriminating in whom they fancy while homos just fancy anything male that has a pulse. And that just isn’t so, of course.

The story tells of how Thomas approached the coach, the coach approached some players and the players eventually said it was no big deal.

But the fact that Thomas had had to go through all that palaver, all that agonising, speaks volumes for the sort of society we’re living in, in which it’s still taboo to be gay. And that’s largely down to religious bigots of the Right-most tendencies, who seem to think it’s anything to do with them what a guy does with his bits and pieces.

Well done, Gareth Thomas! Pity it had to be an issue at all.

Oral and anal

Another religious type whose absence will be of far more benefit to human dignity and equality than his presence has died.

The televangelist Oral Roberts (whose first name doesn’t reflect his sexual preferences, or so we are led to believe) died aged 91 earlier this week.

He was a homophobe. No doubting that. A story in the Advocate tells us:

His realm included Oral Roberts University, which in 2006 blocked its campus to youths participating in the Soulforce Equality Ride, who were visiting Christian colleges and universities in hopes of spreading a message of acceptance for LGBT people. Six Equality Riders and two other people were arrested in that incident. According to Soulforce, a university police officer said, “We love you all; do not come onto our campus.”

Roberts was very specific about what the male member was for (apart, we assume, for pissing), and that was to create life. We give you a YouTube video below in which he talks about how there’s just one orifice – not ten, not two, but one – that’s meant to take the male wang, and that . . .

But you’re ahead of me.

My mother always said we should speak only good of the dead. Oral Roberts is dead. Good!

Questionable question

Bit of a daft question to ask in a “Have Your Say” debate: “Should homosexuals face execution?”

It was on the BBC website, and is examined in Pink News.

The BBC website carries daily “Have Your Say” pages relating to some of the main stories of the day. If it had asked, “Should Muslims be executed?” . . . well, it would never have got through in the first place.

The questionable question in question relates to the hate Bill that is in prospect in Uganda. The question on the BBC web page was quickly changed to “Should Uganda debate gay execution?” (That is really up to Uganda, and is a pretty fatuous question, and bears all the hallmarks of one that has been hurriedly penned in the hope that not too many people have seen the first one.)

The choice of question – the first question, that is – has caused outrage. Pink News says, “Politicians from all the main parties have expressed revulsion at the BBC’s handling of the debate, while readers were angry [that] the question had been allowed to appear.”

The question as it stood brought expected comment from some fascist in Surrey:

Totally agree. Ought to be imposed in the UK too, asap. Bring back some respectable family values. Why do we have to suffer “gay pride” festivals? Would I be allowed to organise a “straight pride” festival? No, thought as much!! If homosexuality is natural, as we are forced to believe, how can they sustain the species? I suggest all gays are put on a remote island and left for a generation – after which, theoretically there should be none left!”

Actually, you moron, you would be able to organise a “straight pride” festival – or ought to be allowed to, provided you were not inciting violence or hatred against gays. Why not? It wouldn’t go down very well, because it would be seen as criticising gays, whereas gay pride events celebrate the gay lifestyle and call for freedom to love as nature intended (for gays, that is, before you start!), and they don’t set out to criticise the straight lifestyle. But I, for one, see no reason why you shouldn’t organise one. See what support you get.

And, double moron, who says you are “forced to believe” anything?

And, double moron on stilts with brass knobs on, what has sustaining the species got to do with anything? Don’t straights manage that (ignoring the fact gays can reproduce, of course, and that it’s just that most of them simply don’t want to shag members of the opposite sex)?

But you’re entitled to your opinion, such as it is.

Slaughter for “honour”

More evidence of how the Religion of Peace™ likes to kill its own kind (as we saw in that disturbing story from Somalia earlier this week) comes to us from the BBC.

A story today tells us of a Muslim father who has been found guilty of slaughtering his daughter because she was with a man with whom her family had religious differences – even though all were part of the same “faith”.

But she had brought dishonour on the family. So she had to die.

Christians obsessing about gay sex – yet again

The UK’s Christian Institute – a bunch of tossers who seem to obsess about little other than homosexuality – seem upset that Gordon Brown is seeking to get civil partnerships harmonised with other EU countries.

Their press release doesn’t exactly slam the move, but the fact that they’ve put one out at all smacks of criticism. They don’t put out press releases when our government seeks to harmonise other laws.

“These negotiations form part of Gordon Brown’s campaign for ‘gay rights’ recognition across Europe,” says the press release. Note the scare quotes on “gay rights”.

The press release lists one or two things Gordon Brown has done for gay rights, and says that “earlier this year he invited the organisers of a controversial month-long drive to teach schoolchildren about homosexuality to a reception at 10 Downing Street” (emphasis mine).

Teach?

This morning, children, we’re going to tell you what to do with your . . .

I think you’ll find that the teaching is about relationships, much as the teaching about heterosexual unions will be. It’s probably a recognition that same-sex relationships are a fact of life (God-given, a Christian might argue, since the Christian God is responsible for everything, understands everything, sees everything).

But organisations like this can use Daily Mail scare tactics when it suits them. “Teach” suggests “this is how you do it”. “Schoolchildren” has a more emotive reaction in a reader than “young people”, because one tends to think of six-, seven- and eight-year-olds rather than the whole spectrum, five to eighteen, with different emphases on aspects of the subject for different ages.

It’s strange what people find to obsess about – especially Christians, who claim to care about the world and its woes.

The disease that is homophobia

There’s a rampant disease spreading through Africa, it seems.

It’s homophobia.

We’ve seen what Uganda is capable of; now it’s the turn of Rwanda. Its own brand of homophobia is being debated in its lower legislative house today.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) points out that the article in the penal code that could make homosexuality a crime – Article 217 – is probably illegal:

Article 217 violates Rwandans’ basic human rights and is contradictory to the Rwandan Constitution as well as various regional and international conventions. IGLHRC, the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), and Rwanda’s Horizon Community Association (HOCA) will shortly issue a call to action to demand that the Rwandan Parliament withdraw this article. We urge the international community to act against this proposed law and support the equality, dignity, and privacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Rwanda.

The proposed code will criminalise “[a]ny person who practices, encourages or sensitizes people of the same sex, to sexual relation or any sexual practice”. If the Chamber of Deputies approves, the draft code will go before the Rwandan Senate, most likely in early 2010.