Malawi couple freed by president

The Malawi couple jailed for 14 years – with hard labour – by a homophobic bastard in that country have now been pardoned by their president.

It was looking bad for Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, who had not only got the sentence – just for being gay, really – but had been separated.

Well it’s good news and all in gaydom are celebrating. Quite rightly. Read all about it here.

Why so coy, Mr Laws?

“Chief Treasury Secretary David Laws has apologised after it emerged he had been claiming MPs’ expenses to rent rooms in homes owned by his partner,” says the BBC.

And, whatever he says in his defence – i.e. that he didn’t consider the other person a partner in the sense that most people would – we have to ask why he would wish to keep the relationship out of the public eye.

Well, in case you don’t already know, Laws’s partner is male. And why did Laws get into this little fix? “My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality,” he says.

So one has to ask: Why? What’s the big deal in this day and age, especially when openly gay MPs are to be found all over the place, happily getting on with being MPs?

Is Laws’s wish to keep his sexuality a secret some sort of admission that he’s ashamed of it? If he is, then perhaps he should seek counselling. But any gay man should know that being open and honest is what has helped to push gay rights as far as they have gone – not as far as they might, perhaps, but a long way from what they were a few years ago.

It’s one thing simply wanting to keep your private life private. Heterosexuals do that, too. But wanting to keep your sexuality a secret is something else, and people in Laws’s position can do a lot for the gay “cause” by simply being open. Not shouting things from the rooftops, just being open.

How many people are now looking at his story and wondering just what the hell is wrong with being gay?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Believe less, pay more!

The punishment for not believing in a sky fairy: you pay higher fares on the bus.

Wonderful, isn’t it?

Ratzo condemns same-sex marriage! Oh, what a surprise!

My fellow blogger George Broadhead has been having a go at Ratzo again – and with good reason.

Following the Pope’s latest attack in Portugal on gay marriage, this blog’s dear mother, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), has branded this, and previous attacks, as clear evidence of a paranoid obsession about what he perceives as the evil of homosexuality.

The old twat – Ratzo, not George – was addressing a multitude at the shrine of Fatima during a four-day visit to Portugal.

As PTT secretary George pointed out that Ratzo made his first official attack on gay marriage in 2005 following years of condemning same sex couples whilst working for the last Pope. He told a meeting of the Diocese of Rome that same sex unions are only “pseudo matrimony” born of “an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man”. Before he became Pope, Benedict repeatedly attacked same sex marriage. As Cardinal Ratzinger he issued an edict calling on all Catholic priests to resist government reforms that might lead to gay weddings.

And, in his 2008 Christmas message, he declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. Now, in his address to the faithful in Portugal, he has described gay marriage as an insidious and dangerous threat to the common good.

“These repeated attacks on gay rights, and in particular the right to marriage, amount to a paranoid obsession about what the Pope clearly perceives as an intrinsic moral evil,” George Broadhead has said in a hard-hitting news release.

“Given that the stance of all three main UK political parties is supportive of gay rights, are their leaders going to have the guts to condemn this overt hostility and will the new coalition government think twice about welcoming this ghastly bigot to the UK next September?”

Nope. Sorry. They won’t think twice. The old bastard will put his unwanted pretty little red jackboot onto our soil, and to hell with what huge numbers of people think, or the expense to the UK taxpayer. Mustn’t upset religion.

Yours truly did an article in Gay & Lesbian Humanist recently on this monster.

Freethought in the most unexpected places

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

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

Read all about it here.

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

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

AIDS and HIV: the hot debate continues

The big debate over whether HIV really does cause AIDS seems to have stirred up a hornets’ nest.

The article appears in the latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist (see link in sidebar for latest issue at any given time), and in it John Lauritsen, the American AIDS dissident, takes on Seth Kalichman, a clinical psychologist who has written several books on AIDS.

Lauritsen couldn’t get a rebuttal article into New Humanist after an article by Kalichman appeared there that seemed to be knocking AIDS dissidents.

Several people have entered the fray since then, and a scathing comment in Digital Journal below its report on the issue has links that lead you to more.

It’s a hot topic. Don’t ask me where I stand. I’m not a scientist.

Gay & Lesbian Humanist: the election, the pope, Derren Brown and much more

It’s election day here in the UK – but that’s not the only subject on offer in the latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist. The online magazine also looks at AIDS dissidents, alleged papal cover-ups of priestly sexual abuse and nonreligious ceremonies, among other things. And we pay tribute to one of the founding fathers of gay-rights campaigning in the UK, Antony Grey, who has died aged 82.

But today’s election is an opportunity, so the pundits are always telling us, for the British public to engage in the crucial debate about the choice of who will govern and what policies will be enacted in the next four or five years.

The latest issue of G&LH takes the theme "Dogma or debate?" and looks at election topics, with editor Mike Foxwell asking, “Am I just a tad pedantic – cynical even – in believing that for there to be any meaningful debate about anything there has to be a divergence of position, a fundamental difference of opinion?”

And, he asks, is the system we have human enough?

“Somehow, our humanity seems to diminish in proportion to the size of the group until you end up with a totally dehumanised chimera called the State. True, big groups of people can do bad things, but it takes the State to commit the real atrocities such as the illegal and unjustified war on Iraq. It wasn’t in the Labour Party’s manifesto, the British people didn’t vote for it and in fact protested against it in enormous numbers, but it still happened.

“If you are looking for corrupt, self-serving and untrustworthy, look no further than the Government. Maybe in the end it doesn’t matter whom you vote for, who gets in, it’s still the government that wins – and that’s the root of the problem.”

Sexuality and politics

In his “Vote seXuality” feature Andy Armitage takes a look at whether being gay influences the way people vote. He asked the eight main political parties fielding candidates in the UK General Election a simple question: “What can your party offer to the LGBT community that other parties cannot or will not?”. Only three of the parties bothered to reply at all. The Tories were not one of them, and it’s the Tories who, in spite of more recent attempts to court the pink vote, have traditionally been the nastiest towards gay people.

Peter Tatchell, too, is far from impressed by the platitudes coming from the Tories as he reports in his “Big Gay Flashmob” article. The election theme is continued in our “Out of Print” feature, which is taken from the Summer 1997 issue of G&LH, in which Terry Sanderson, now president of the National Secular Society, assessed the gay-law-reform prospects following the election of Tony Blair’s Labour government earlier that year.

On the lighter side, Steven Dean seems to have an opinion on almost everything, and this time he gives us an insight to how he chooses whom to vote for. As you would expect, there’ll be an “X” in it somewhere!

HIV = AIDS?

HIV-AIDS is another subject that still arouses heated debate.

A recent attack on what have become known as AIDS dissenters was made in the November/December 2009 issue of the British publication New Humanist by an AIDS establishmentarian Seth Kalichman, who mounts a scurrilous ad hominem attack on a number of well-known HIV-AIDS critics, and then urges his readers never to enter into a debate with dissenters about the facts surrounding the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.

One reader of Kalichman’s article was HIV-AIDS dissident John Lauritsen, who was outraged and asked the New Humanist editor, Caspar Melville, for the right of reply. He did not get one, but G&LH has given Lauritsen the space to make the rebuttal that he was denied.

Reform in the Church of England

Though hardly radical by freethought standards, debate within the Church of England has been rumbling on within that stalwart of dogma for the past decade or so. The anti-reform backlash has been marshalled by a group called, in true Orwellian fashion, “Reform”. In his feature, “Church’s end”, Neil Richardson laments the influence of these hardliners

Arrest the Pope

There have been moves by noted atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to have the Pope arrested when he comes to Britain in September. Is this realistic? In his feature, “Arresting the Pope”, Andy Armitage assesses the likelihood of success for this audacious plan.

Continuing the theme of priestly abuse, Andrew John discusses the impact of a letter from the 1980s alleging that Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, counselled against the defrocking of a California priest, putting the unity of the universal church first and asks, “Where does it all go from here?”

Rife with homophobia?

Sometimes it seems that the world at large is rife with homophobia wherever you look. Many of us harbour the dark thought that, with the resurgence of radical religion across the world, things are getting worse. Author Narvel Annable counsels against being too negative in his article, “House of homophobia”.

Social-awareness campaigns

Continuing in a more optimistic vein, gay-rights campaigner Mirka Makuchowska tells us of the extremely active Polish gay rights organisation, Kampania Przeciw Homofobii, of which she is currently secretary.

One of its current campaigns is for a Polish civil-partnership bill.

New-look news

This issue see the first of our new-look news feature, “The full story”, which replaces the long-running “News Watch” and “World Watch” features. The intention is to provide a more integrated view of chosen news stories worldwide in an attempt to join up the news dots, as it were. Dean Braithwaite and George Broadhead have the full story.

Derren Brown

“Blogwatch” this time focuses on the blog of the illusionist, mentalist, painter and sceptic Derren Brown, who will have been seen on UK television by many readers.

Another well-known illusionist is James Randi, who at the age of 81 has recently come out as gay. In his feature, “An amazing escape”, John Brand takes a closer look at Randi and how he decided to come out. Warren Allen Smith also has something to say about Randi in his “Gossip from across the Pond” article, in which he tells us of his correspondence with Randi following his coming-out.

To the woods

Becoming ever more popular are nonreligious ceremonies, not just funerals but birth and wedding ones, too. George Broadhead takes a look at what’s on offer in his feature, “Exit strategy”.

The magazine is online: just click the logo below or on our sidebar.

Veteran campaigner Antony Grey has died

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The Pope Song”

As we all know, Pope Benedict XVI has been invited, by Penitent Sinner Gordon Brown, to the UK on a state visit later this year.

If, like me, you’re offended by that, then take a look at this YouTube music video by Tim Minchin and Fraser Davidson. (This post continues below the video – but watch the vid first.)



On YouTube, fraserdavidson says: “My friend Tim recently recorded his own tribute to Pope Benedict XVI in time for his state visit to the UK. I animated it.”

And you thought the leaked memo from the Papal Visit Team was a hoot.

And, thanks to skepchik and two of her readers, Philology and Aoisha, for writing down the lyric, we can all learn it in time for the Big Papal Occasion.

Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker
He’s a fucking motherfucker

Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the fucking fucker
Fuck the motherfucker
He’s a total fucking fucker

Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker
Fucking fuck the motherfucker

Fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucking Pope

Fuck the motherfucker
And fuck you motherfucker
If you think that motherfucker is sacred

If you cover for another motherfucker who’s a kiddie fucker
Fuck you, you’re no better than the motherfucking rapist

And if you don’t like the swearing that this motherfucker forced from me
And reckon that it shows moral or intellectual paucity
Then fuck you motherfucker, this is language one employs
When one is fucking cross about fuckers fucking boys

I don’t give a fuck if calling the Pope a motherfucker
Means you unthinkingly brand me an unthinking apostate
This has naught to do with other fucking godly motherfuckers
I’m not interested right now in fucking scriptural debate

There are other fucking songs and there are other fucking ways
I’ll be a religious apologist on other fucking days
But the fact remains, if you protect a single kiddie fucker
Then Pope or prince or plumber, you’re a fucking motherfucker

You see I don’t give a fuck what any other motherfucker
Believes about Jesus and his motherfucking mother
And I’ve no problem with the spiritual beliefs of all these fuckers
While those beliefs don’t impact on the happiness of others

But if you build a church on claims of fucking moral authority
And with threats of hell impose it on others in society
Then you, you motherfuckers, could expect some fucking wrath
When it turns out you’ve been fucking us in our motherfucking asses

So fuck the motherfucker
And fuck you, motherfucker if you’re still a motherfucking papist
If he covered for a single motherfucker who’s a kiddie fucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he’s as evil as the rapist

And if you look into your motherfucking heart and tell me true
If this motherfucking stupid fucking song offended you
With its filthy fucking language and it’s fucking disrespect
If it made you feel angry, go ahead and write a letter
But if you find me more offensive than the fucking possibility
That the Pope protected priests when they were getting fucking fiddly
Then listen to me, motherfucker, this here is a fact:

You are just as morally misguided as that motherfucking
Power-hungry, self-aggrandized bigot in the stupid fucking hat.

What are you waiting for?

Benedicto condomo

I know I'm a bit behind the times with this one, but you've got to have a laugh.

Revelation of the leaked Papal Visit Team memo got the UK Foreign Office into all of a lather last week.

But, instead of being outraged about the suggestions contained within it, Exuse For An Atheist David Miliband should have apologised to the Catholic Church-instigated child-abuse victims for the invitation that his government has extended to Pope Benedict XVI to visit this country later this year.

The memo included such brilliant suggestions as:

Launch of "Benedict" Condoms
Open an abortion ward
Bless a civil partnership
Reverse policy on women bishops
Training course for all bishops on child-abuse allegations

To which should have been added

Turn around, get back on the plane and bugger off back to the Vatican.

For the full story, see this Digital Journal article.

At last! A cure for homosexuality! Woo-hoo!

Wow! The power of prayer can cure homosexuality! Go to it, readers (those of you who are gay, that is), and get cured. After all, this disease you’ve had all these years is far worse than herpes, pox and clap all rolled into one.

We have it on good authority that being gay can be cured. We’re told so by one Philippa Stroud, likely to win the Sutton and Cheam seat in the general election on Thursday. She is head of the Centre for Social Justice – a Tory think tank set up by the party’s former leader Iain Duncan Smith – and believes that gays are possessed by satanic forces. Only prayer can liberate them.

So what are you waiting for?

Our father, who art in heaven, heal us, we beseech thee. Cure us of this vile affection that causes us to lie with man as with woman (and the evil lesbians among us to lie with woman as with man). We praise, oh Lord, thine everlasting mercy. Ah, men! (Sorry, ladies – couldn’t think of a pun for gay women along those lines, so I’m sure you’ll excuse me and not feel excluded. I can’t resist a pun.)

Now this silly woman is part of an organisation that has had and continues to have a lot of influence on Tory policy. It won’t surprise you to know that she’s married to a man who is a minister for the New Frontiers Church, which is allied to the US evangelical movement.

Need I say more?

It remains to be seen whether newly gay-friendly leader of the Toff Party will sack the evil cow. Doubt it.
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Hat tip to Barry over at the Freethinker, where I first saw this story.

UK election candidates audition for Glee

OK, the headline is misleading, but when I saw this pic on the BBC website I couldn’t resist nicking it.

What are they singing? Any ideas? Comments welcome. Be imaginative.

Gary and the gays: a case that’s just not very appealing

So religious belief has no objective merit to it. Somebody has at last said it in a court of law.

This is Lord Justice Laws, ruling in the case of Gary McFarlane, the relationships counsellor who wouldn’t counsel gay couples. He lost his job with Relate (formerly the Marriage Council Bureau), appealed against the decision, lost, and now, in the High Court, he’s been refused permission to take it to the Appeals Court.

This is the Christian Legal Centre’s take on the issue:

Mr McFarlane, a relationships counsellor from Bristol, sacked by the Relate Relationship organisation after he refused to provide sexual counselling to homosexual couples because of his Christian beliefs, asked that his case be heard by different judges to those who ruled against [Islington registrar] Lillian Ladele in December 2009

Church leaders have been deeply concerned by the ruling by Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, on behalf of the Court of Appeal, in the case of Lillian Ladele – a registrar who refused to conduct civil partnerships ceremonies because they were against her Christian beliefs – and have argued that the Court of Appeal’s decision effectively means that the right to express a strong Christian faith must take second place to the rights of homosexuals under Labour's equality laws.

It was argued by Human Rights barrister Paul Diamond that previous decisions had failed to grapple with the fundamental clash of rights that has occurred within the law between orthodox Christian teaching on sex and marriage and the protection of homosexual rights. It was argued that the Courts were required by Parliament to undertake such an exercise and have allowed instead one set of rights to trump another.

Lord Justice Laws refused Mr McFarlane’s application, and a personal plea by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury (1991–2002), and other senior church leaders, that the Master of the Rolls be asked to stand down from future Court of Appeal hearings involving cases of religious discrimination because of “perceived bias” against Christianity.

Senior churchmen believed that Mr McFarlane would not have received a proper consideration of the religious convictions involved if his case was heard in front of judges who, they argue, had already shown a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs in previous cases.

In his Judgment, Lord Justice Laws accepted that laws in Britain can be influenced by Christianity and said: “The Judaeo-Christian tradition, stretching over many centuries, has no doubt exerted a profound influence upon the judgment of lawmakers as to the objective merits of this or that social policy.”

And Lord Justice Laws gave examples, such as the “core provisions of the criminal law: the prohibition of violence and dishonesty”.

However, he then seemed to draw a distinction between some moral positions of Christianity, where on merit they should be adopted by others, to other positions of Christianity, where he stated that it is “deeply unprincipled” to confer “any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture”.

Nobody would disagree that laws should not reflect purely irrational and subjective views of religious believers. However, it is deeply disturbing that Lord Justice Laws appears to place Mr McFarlane’s view on sex and marriage into the “subjective” category as opposed to the “meritorious” category. Hence it was held that the religious belief in question – namely that marriage as between one man and woman for life is the only proper place for sexual expression – could not be protected, because it is a belief held only on subjective basis with no objective merit to it.

Lord Justice Laws went on to say:

“. . . in the eye of everyone save the believer religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society. Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims [my emphasis – AA].

“The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”

Andrea Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The notion that the Bible’s teaching, of particular focus in this case on sex and marriage is ‘necessarily subjective being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence’, is highly contentious to say the least. To put the reasonably held beliefs of Christians into a such a category is alarming and in effect seeks to rule out Christian principles of morality from the public square.

“Mr McFarlane simply wanted his religious beliefs to be accommodated by his employer, which in the specific facts of the case was not unreasonable. It seems that a religious bar to office has been created, whereby a Christian who wishes to act on their Christian beliefs on marriage will no longer be able to work in a great number of environments.”

She doesn’t get it, does she? Religious belief has no objective merit to it. You can’t regulate real life based on this tosh.

McFarlane has put up a fight, just as Ladele did. Each stood by his/her principles – but not all principles are for the better good. Principles that hold religion above human equality and dignity certainly aren’t.

So some justice has been done, and has been seen to be done.

Politician regrets public debate! What?

So the UK’s Justice Secretary has “expressed his regret at triggering a ferocious public debate” when he said he didn’t like talking to women wearing bin bags.

Jack Straw famously told a Muslim woman constituent who had turned up at his surgery with only her eyes peeping through the dehumanising garb some of these people feel they have to wear that he felt uncomfortable.

Now, trying to get votes, he’s told a meeting organised by the campaign group Engage that his remarks were taken out of context (they all say that) and he still regularly sees women wearing the full veil.

And, according to the Daily Mail, he regrets having caused the ensuing public debate.

Why should a politician regret having caused a public debate? Isn’t politics about debate and getting the public talking about issues?

No, it seems. Public debates are to be regretted.

“He told a packed hall of local Muslim residents: ‘To be blunt, if I had realised the scale of publicity that they [his comments] received in October 2006, I wouldn’t have made them and I am sorry that it has caused problems and I offer that apology,” the Mail says.

Which shows that he’s willing to tone down his remarks and “regret” that they’ve caused public debate now he’s trying to keep his job.

The fact is that people wishing to engage in public with others – be that MPs, bank tellers, a courtroom full of jurors and lawyers, shop assistants, police or immigration officers – should be ready to show their faces. If they wish to play dress-up in their own homes – because their husbands make them or they believe their imaginary friend wants them to – fine, except that’s it’s in public, not in the home, that these women feel they have to cover up in case men get frisky and try to rape them.

I’m uncomfortable about an outright ban, because, with the litigious government we have at the moment (albeit “on hold” while the election campaign continues – and the next one is not likely to be any different), where will it end? But there’s no excuse for allowing people to hide their identities when it’s important to communicate with others.

Straw should have the courage of his convictions (if he has any convictions left) and say he meant it, that he felt uncomfortable, that he wasn’t calling for a ban, merely that a person should meet him face to face when appearing in his surgery to ask for help or advice.

A church not worth saving

The leaked memo concerning ways to mark the Pope’s proposed visit to the UK in September was a real hoot, you have to admit.

By way of a reminder, this story covers it pretty well, and this one tells us how it won’t affect the damned visit, which will cost the taxpayer up to £20 million, plus money from existing police budgets to keep the bastard from taking a well-deserved bullet.

However, in brief, some civil servants in the UK’s Foreign Office had a brainstorming session on the subject. Among the suggestions were the issue of “Benedict” condoms, that His Twatship should bless a gay marriage, that he should do a duet with our Dear Sovereign Lady the Queen (bless her cotton socks and squeaky voice) and open an abortion ward.

The atheist Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, grovelled to apologise to the evil organisation that was set up in Italy by a Fascist dictator, and the civil servant responsible was moved to other duties.

Anyway, the whole thing prompted my fellow Gatheist discussion group member, John Hunt, to pen a letter to said Miliband, which he’s given me permission to reproduce:

Dear Mr Miliband

Having seen reports of the memo allegedly circulated by a junior Foreign Office civil servant (though a senior official since held responsible has been transferred to other duties), and of the Foreign Office response (that this “is clearly a foolish document . . . clearly ill-judged, naïve and disrespectful”), it appears that neither the Foreign Office nor some journalists appreciate the grave and profound damage which successive popes have inflicted and continue to inflict upon Roman Catholic faithful, upon lapsed Roman Catholics, upon society at large, and upon LGBTIQ people in particular.

As just one example of the many evils inflicted (some deliberately, others unwittingly – but nevertheless condoned and concealed) by the Vatican machine, the UK and the world are still awaiting a proper response to the issue of decades (if not centuries) of global sexual abuse of children by priests. Yet while the UK and the world lose faith that such a response will ever be forthcoming, despite whatever divine inspiration Josef (“Benedict”) Ratzinger may be able to access, you reportedly declare yourself appalled to hear of this brain-storming exercise. Although some of the proposals are sadly not practical this year, others (whatever Benedict may think of them) would be interpreted by many as a token first step on the long, up-hill journey which the Vatican needs to undertake if it wishes to recover any moral standing.

Religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill wrote in the Times a year ago, “Even friends of the Church must be asking themselves, on reading this terrible litany of shame, whether the Church is worth saving at all.” Subsequent revelations indicate that, in the world court of public opinion, it most definitely is not. Amen.

It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes back by way of response.

Pass the bucket!

Oh, how utterly, utterly vomit-inducing!

Ekklesia, the religious think tank, has helpfully brought together the thoughts of the three main UK political leaders on matters of “faith” – and there’s not much to choose between them. Oh, Clegg of the Lim Dems says he’s not a man of “faith”, but he allows his kids to be brought up Catholics by his deluded wife. (OK, one of them had to win the argument over where to send the sprogs, I guess, but he’s not denouncing these dens of dogma.)

Cameron for the toffs is just dying to see the Holy Twat put his dainty red jackboots on our soil.

And Brown? Well, he’s NuLabour. What do you expect? Just sycophancy (he did, after all, visit Ratzo and then invite him here), status quo, let’s not upset people just because they’re deluded, misguided idiots, let’s not actually use our political influence to show what a monster Ratzinger is and refuse him a state visit.

Read Ekklesia’s report on what was said in last night’s prime-ministerial TV debate here. But here’s a bit from each of the leaders.

CAMERON

I do think it’s welcome that the Pope is coming to Britain and if were your Prime Minister I would want to support that visit and make sure I could do everything in my power to make it a success.

There are millions of people in our country who would welcome that, who share the Pope’s Catholic faith and I think we should try and sic] make a success of it but do I agree with everything the Pope says? No. I don’t agree with him about contraception, I don’t agree with him about homosexuality and I think the Catholic church has got some very, very serious work to do to unearth and come to terms with some of the appalling things that have happened and they need to do that but I do think that we should respect people of faith, I think faith is important in our country.

I think faith-based organisations, whether they are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu do amazing things in our country, whether it is working in our prisons or providing good schools or actually helping some of those vulnerable people in our country, so a country where faith is welcome, yes. A good visit from the Pope, yes, but does that mean we have to agree with everything he says? No.

No, but you’re not saying we, the taxpayers, should not have to fork out an estimated twenty million quid for this unutterable shit.

And how do you define a successful visit by this man? My definition would be that we give him a welcome so warm that he combusts. No different from the treatment his kind used to mete out to those who didn't agree with them. But it's better that he not come in the first place, and be told he’s not welcome.

CLEGG

My wife – I’m not a man of faith – my wife, Miriam, is Catholic, my children are being brought up in her faith so I have a little bit of an insight into the immense feelings of anguish in the Catholic community here and elsewhere and I think many Catholics themselves feel really extremely torn apart by what’s happened and I think they do want to see the Catholic church express greater openness and repentance.

You can’t keep a lid on sin and of course you need to move with the times. I do welcome the Pope’s visit but I hope by the time he does visit there is a greater recognition that there has been terrible, terrible suffering, there has been abusive relationships which have left immeasurable scars on individual people’s lives and we need a process of openness and then healing. You can’t undo the tragedies of the past but you can be open about them so people can start to move on.

And you can help people to move on by keeping that monster out of our country – or at least sending a very strong message that he’s not wanted here (Geert Wilders was banned from our country by NuLabour for far less).

BROWN

I’ve met some of the people who have rightly complained about the abuse that they were subject to when young and it never leaves them, it’s something that is with them always and no matter what you can try to do to help, there is always this problem that they have to face up to every day that they were abused, cruelly abused, by people in whom they placed their faith and trust. So the church has got to deal with these problems and it has got to make sure there is an open and clean confession about what has happened and that we help those people that have been put into difficulty by this abuse.

But, you know, I welcome the Pope’s visit to Britain, and I want him to come to Britain for two reasons. One is the Catholic Church is a great part of our society and we should recognise it as such and I hope every British citizen wants to see this visit by the Pope take place, and secondly, we must break down the barriers of religion that exist in our world.

The faiths must come together and recognise that they have common values and common interests. We all believe that we should be good neighbours to each other, I’m from the Presbyterian religion but I support the visit. I not only support it, I want religious faiths to work more closely together in society.

Well they’re clearly not going to be able to work with the evil Catholic Church, are they – the church you allow to run schools that are allowed to torture the minds of kids and make them feel utterly ashamed of themselves for being natural? No, because the Catholic Church will not move an inch on that bit of dogma – and many others – will it?

This makes me determined not to vote for any of them: the smarmy toff Cameron, the hypocrite Clegg, the sycophant Brown.

Now, will someone pass me the bucket!

__________

Related link: Gay & Lesbian Humanist article by yours truly on the “invitation to a monster”

Death to all gays!

Pink News tells us that a geezer in Wyoming who painted “Leviticus 20: 13, to be gay = death” on his fence won’t be prosecuted because he’s not breaking the law.

Maybe he isn’t, but it makes you wonder whether there’d be a different outcry if he left the biblical reference out. Is he being more tolerated because he’s quoting the Bible?

The biblical verse referred to does say that men who lie with men as with women should be put to death, not merely that they’ll die of old age or exhaustion – or both. So you could argue that this is some kind of incitement.

If he just said, “The Bible says to be gay is wrong” or whatever, then we could hardly argue – with his daubing it, that is, not the sentiment itself, which is clearly barmy. He may be a nutter, but part of our tolerant society is that we tolerate nutters – until they begin to threaten the freedom and safety of others.

Ratzo’s in his haven and all’s well with the world

New York Times:

Buffeted by a sexual abuse scandal that is quickly defining his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI marked the fifth anniversary of his election on Monday by telling a group of cardinals that he did not feel alone at the head of what he called a “wounded and sinner” church.

Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He’s cosy in a world that has protected him and his kind since they were immersed in it, with no idea at all of what goes on outside it other than what he has seen. Well we’ve all seen things outside our experience. We have TVs. We walk through cities. He can no more empathise than I can, and probably not sympathise very much, either.

Anyway, as the NYT points out:

His remarks seemed yet another small and indirect reference to the growing sexual abuse scandal, which has focused more directly on whether Benedict, before he became pope, and his subordinates acted strongly enough against pedophile priests.

Quite. Trite words. Totally irrelevant.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano says that Ratzo “very strongly feels that he is not alone; that he has on his side the entire college of cardinals, sharing with him tribulations and consolations”.

Well, I’m sure we’re all very happy for him. They’ll share his tribulations while the victims of the child abuse Ratzo – and others – permitted while he was himself a cardinal can go screw themselves and take their own tribulations with them.

He’s done an apology; he can now enjoy the comfort of his pals and the luxury of his position, paid for by the poor followers who have over generations been duped into believing the shit he claims to believe in, and thereby submitting to the very powerful control his organisation wields.

Homosexuality is to blame for abuse scandal! Oh, it all makes sense now!

There are some things that really bring out the urge to kill.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, effectively the deputy to Pope Ratzo, is one of them.

It’s homosexuality, not celibacy, that is at the centre of the huge scandal over pervy priests, you see. Once again, it’s the gays who are to blame, says this twat in a frock who lives among men and who, if he’s stuck to his vows, has no practical knowledge of natural love, though, like his fellows, would no doubt be eager to tell us what is unnatural love.

“Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told [!], that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia,” he told journalists during a press conference in Chile, effectively inciting homophobes there to form lynch mobs.

And what of the paedophilia that has men raping girls, Cardinal? Is that homosexual, too, you raving nutcase?

Even if he were right, what has that got to do with the price of eggs? Priests – Catholic priests – raped and otherwise abused kids. The scandal isn’t about C of E priests (although there has no doubt been some hanky-panky there, too). It isn’t about Hindus or Buddhists. It isn’t about Jeddi Knights or New Agers or Zoroastrians. It’s about the Roman Catholic Church. End of story.

I know it’s very unlikely that a successful arrest of Ratzo will be made – as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens hope – when he visits the UK in September, but I sincerely hope that and the other healthily bad publicity the old sod and his cardinals and priests have had will continue to cascade on the Vatican like a thousand cartloads of horseshit – once a second.

What an utter waste of space that place is, filled as it is with monsters in frocks and reeking with their evil!

Yes. OK. I’m annoyed. I’ve shouted a bit. I’ll calm down. I’ll shut up now.