Humanists angry at bullying report

The UK’s only independent gay humanist organisation, the charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT – owner of this blog), has expressed its great concern at the findings of the latest Stonewall report on school bullying.

The new report published by the gay campaigning organisation Stonewall has shown “some improvement in the level of homophobic bullying in schools since its previous one published in 2007”, says the PTT. “However the report, entitled ‘The School Report: The experiences of gay young people in Britain's schools in 2012’, has found that the issue remains widespread, and continues to be a greater problem in religious schools than elsewhere.”

The PTT singles out some of the report’s findings: 

– Only half of lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils report that their schools say homophobic bullying is wrong; the figure is even lower in religious schools, at 37 per cent.

– About one in four (26 per cent) lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils – and more than one in three gay pupils in religious schools (36 per cent) – say that teachers who hear homophobic language never challenge it.

– Religious schools are still less likely than schools in general to take steps to prevent and respond to homophobic bullying.

– And Stonewall says that, while no gay young people said they experience “bullying” by teachers, 17 per cent say that teachers and other school staff do make homophobic comments. This rises to 22 per cent for pupils in religious schools.

Commenting on the findings the PTT’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “This is a deplorable situation and the fact that the problem is greater in religious schools is not at all surprising. Hardly a day goes by without some report in the media about religious hostility to LGBT relationships and rights, and some of it, like that from the Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, is sustained and downright vicious. All this is bound to have a bad influence on both teachers and pupils in the ever increasing number of religious schools.”

Strange bedfellows

What a bunch of strange bedfellows!

Rabid right-wing Christians, a rabid right-wing Tory and yer actual “militant atheists” (or whatever the favoured term is for secularists these days) have joined together in the name of freedom of speech.

Yesterday saw the launch of the Reform Section 5 campaign, which aims to increase the pressure on the UK’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, to amend the 1986 Public Order Act.

Section 5 of the Act outlaws “insulting words or behaviour”, whatever “insulting” means, since it can be interpreted in as many ways as there are adjectives. The human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell – not known for his love of religion – says in a press release: “Civil liberties campaigners, faith groups and secular organisations have joined forces to have the word ‘insulting’ removed from the legislation on the grounds that it restricts free speech and penalises campaigners, protesters and even preachers.

“The Reform Section 5 campaign is headlining with the slogan: ‘Feel free to insult me’, and asks the vital question: ‘Who should decide whether words, posters or ideas are insulting?’

“The campaign points out that the law rightly protects the public against discrimination, harassment, threats and violence – but that it has no legitimate role protecting us from having our feelings hurt.”

Couldn’t agree more. And I know that both Tatchell and Your Humble Blogger have said on many occasions that, once we start down the road of banning what people can say about us, we turn that on ourselves, and suddenly we find we can’t say things about them. That’s why it’s in all our interests to fight for the freedom to say what we like (usual caveats, of course, about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre when there isn’t one; about genuine defamation, which has to be decided in a court of law; and about deliberate incitement to violence).

So who is in the line-up?

Peter Tatchell. Doesn’t need much introduction: Aussie-born Britain-based longstanding campaigner for gay rights and human rights in general. Has got into some hairy scrapes on occasion, even getting beaten up by Robert Mugabe’s thugs, doing permanent damage to an eye.

Keith Wood is director of the National Secular Society, of which his civil partner Terry Sanderson is president.

There’s David Davis, a Tory with a few good points, who (and this isn’t one of them) called in 2003 for the return of the death penalty in the UK for the most serious murder cases.

However, in 2008 he forced a by-election in his constituency by resigning, because he wanted then to recontest the seat on a platform of widening the debate about the erosion of civil liberties by the then Labour government. (He got back in, unopposed, as it happened.)

In a sort of pre-echo of this current situation, Davis shared a platform with another unlikely bedfellow, the left-wing veteran former Labour MP Tony Benn, when the two took part in the launch of Big Brother Watch in 2010

There’s a rabidly Christian Tory of the right-wing persuasion called Edward Leigh, who’s a Catholic, and we know that, in any other circumstances, he might not actually say the likes of Tatchell and Wood should be silenced (well, he wouldn’t dare), but I suspect he would wish they were. Catholics, especially right-wing ones, don’t like the idea of gay marriage, for instance. And, if he follows the ideas of Herr Ratzinger, his fascistic leader, he will see all gay relationships as an intrinsic evil or whatever highfalutin, nonsensical twaddle the old twat spouted.

Leigh was a great Thatcher supporter, which speaks volumes. And he once got into a scrape because he relied on flawed Department for Transport stats to attack motorcyclists for tax evasion.

He’s also president of the ultra-conservative, antigay, pro-“family” Cornerstone Group within the Tory Party (the right wing within the right wing, you might say), with the motto “Faith, Flag and Family”. That says it all.

Now it has been known for left-wingers to refuse to share a platform with people they disagree with. Instance Ken Livingstone, failed London mayor hopeful this (and once London mayor himself), who pulled out of a BBC mayoral debate because the British National Party was involved.

I wonder if Livingstone would say Tatchell shouldn’t be involved with Leigh and his  “family values” cronies.

Just a thought, and mentioned because, on occasions (although I’m not accusing Tatchell and Wood of this), lefties have refused to get into bed with righties or those perceived to be racist or homophobic – when it suits them.

However, moving on . . .

Last, there’s Simon Calvert, who represents the Christian Institute, which has had some nutty things to say about gay matters in the past, including questions about freedom of speech, accusing gays of wanting to shut down freedom of speech when the opposite was the case.

This is what Tatchell’s press release quotes him as saying:

Despite my well-known disagreements with David Davis and the Christian Institute, in defence of free speech and the right to protest, we’ve sunk our differences and are working together to reform Section 5. Freedom of expression is so important. It transcends party politics and ideology.

It is commendable that David Davis and the Christian Institute are prepared to work with a gay left-wing Green atheist and secularist like me. We’re all putting the right to free speech before our personal politics and beliefs.

I have been a victim of Section 5. In 1994, I organised a small peaceful protest against the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, some of whose members had endorsed the killing of Jews, homosexuals, apostates and women who have sex outside of marriage. I displayed placards that factually documented the persecution of gay people by Islamist fanatics. I was arrested and charged under Section 5 with behaviour that was deemed insulting and likely to cause distress. I fought the charges and eventually won, but not before spending many hours in police cells and standing trial.

This experience convinced me that Section 5 is open to abuse by over-zealous police and prosecutors. That’s why I am supporting the Reform Section 5 campaign. The campaign brings together an unlikely alliance of people who would otherwise be political foes. Both my own Peter Tatchell Foundation and the National Secular Society have been traditionally at loggerheads with the Christian Institute over its opposition to gay equality and its defence of religious privilege. But on this issue we agree.

The Section 5 ban on insults is a menace to liberty. It has been abused to variously arrest or threaten with arrest people protesting non-violently against abortion and for gay equality and animal welfare. Other victims include Christian street preachers, critics of Scientology and even students making jokes.

In 2008, a teenager was given a court summons for holding a placard that denounced Scientology as a dangerous cult. Three years earlier, an Oxford student was arrested for jokingly suggesting that a police horse was gay. In both cases, even though the charges were later dropped, the victims had their freedom of expression infringed and they suffered public humiliation by the police.

Section 5 has been also used unjustly against Christian street preachers who have merely condemned homosexuality, without being abusive or threatening. Although what they said was homophobic and should be challenged, they should not have been criminalised. Dale McAlpine was arrested in 2010 for saying that gay sex is sinful. In my view, Dale is a homophobe but he should not have been prosecuted. On free speech grounds, I offered to testify in his defence.

Under Section 5, is it an offence for a person to use “insulting words or behaviour” in a way that is “likely” to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.” There is no requirement to prove that anyone has been harassed, alarmed or distressed. The mere likelihood is sufficient to secure a conviction. Moreover, an offence is committed regardless of the person’s intention. Innocently intended words, behaviours or signs can result in a criminal record. The police and the courts can decide if you or someone else might feel insulted.

When does an insult cease to be a legitimate (if bad mannered) expression of opinion and become a matter for arrest and prosecution? Much satirical comedy and many polemical critiques of religion are deemed insults by some people.

What constitutes an insult is a subjective judgement, open to widely different interpretations. For some ultra-sensitive people, what others regard as valid criticisms may cause them to feel insulted and distressed. Indeed, any controversial or dissenting viewpoint has the potential to upset someone and result in them – or the police – deciding that they feel insulted and distressed.

If we accept that insults resulting in likely alarm or distress should be a crime, we risk limiting free and open debate and criminalising dissenting opinions and alternative lifestyles that some people may find offensive and upsetting. The right to mock, ridicule and satirise ideas, opinions and institutions is put in jeopardy. Section 5 can, in theory, be used to criminalise almost any words, actions or images, if even just one person is likely to be alarmed or distressed by them.

There is no right to be not distressed or offended. Some of the most important ideas in history – such as those of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin – caused great offence and distress in their time.

Do we really need the police and the courts to criminalise insults? Should we not just accept that the risk of insult is a fair price to pay for living in a society which respects free speech?

The law rightly protects us against discrimination, harassment and incitement to violence. It should not be used to protect us from mere insults. It’s time to reform Section 5.

Well, I hope this unlikely coalition is successful in thwarting any attempt to erode our freedoms of speech and expression. But, as for their having “sunk our differences”, we know this is not the case: they’ve decided not to shout about them within the context of this campaign. That hardly amounts to sinking them.

No way have the likes of Leigh and the Christian Institute “sunk [their] differences” when it comes to gay marriage and other aspects of same-sex relationships. But it’s good PR to say they’ve sunk their differences, as long as we realise they’ll be back fighting against civil liberties once the Section 5 campaign is over.

More Catholic action against same-sex marriage annoys gay campaigners

The Pope’s representative in Britain has urged Roman Catholic leaders to form a united front with their Muslim and Jewish counterparts to oppose gay marriage. And the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) – the only gay humanist charity – isn't very chuffed about it.

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio, has called for closer cooperation with other faiths as well as Christian denominations to put pressure on the government over its plans to allow same-sex couples to marry.

At the same time the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, has defended  the right of Catholic schools to promote the Church’s position on marriage following accusations of “political indoctrination from secular and humanist campaigners”. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has threatened to take legal action.

The PTT’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “This move by the Papal Nuncio should come as no surprise. After all, Islamic groups and Orthodox Judaism are as hostile to LGBT rights as the Roman Catholic Church. It is no less surprising to learn that the Archbishop of Southwark is defending the action of Catholic schools. It is outrageous that children attending a school paid for by taxpayers are being encouraged to be homophobic. Let’s hope that the BHA carries out its threat.”

Government probe after Catholic schools allegedly urge kids to sign anti-gay-marriage petition

I see the Welsh government, at least, is going to investigate after Catholic schools in England and Wales were, it’s alleged, found to be more than encouraging kids to sign an anti-gay-marriage petition.

See our post of yesterday for all the gory details.

According – again – to Pink News, the Welsh government “is to begin an official investigation”.

Sign anti-gay-marriage petition, pupils urged

There’s nothing like catching ’em young.

Pink News tells us: “Students at a Catholic state school in south London have been shown a presentation on religious opposition to the government’s proposal to allow gay couples to marry in civil ceremonies which, it is claimed, encouraged them to sign the Coalition for Marriage’s petition against the move.”

Kids as young as 11 were asked to sign this petition, says the online news source.

If this is true, it smacks of hypocrisy. One of the first things the bigots reach for when it comes to telling kids about sexual orientation in school is their age. Oh, they’re too young to have to worry about this sort of thing.

But they seem to be encouraging kids as young as 11 to put their names to a petition opposing equality for gay people.

Pink News quotes a sixth-form student, Katherine: “In our assembly for the whole sixth form you could feel people bristling as [the headmistress] explained parts of the letter and encouraged us to sign the petition.

“She said things about gay marriage and civil partnerships being unnatural. It was just a really outdated, misjudged and heavily biased presentation.

“A few of us in my year are buying Gay Pride badges to pin on our uniform and thought about staging a Stonewall coup by posting the ‘Some people are gay – get over it’ posters around school.”

Good for them!

“Most importantly though, there are several people in my year who aren’t heterosexual – myself included – and I for one was appalled and actually disgusted by what they were encouraging.

“After all, that’s discrimination they were urging impressionable people to engage in, which is unacceptable.”

The Catholic Education Service confirmed to the online outlet that it had written to at least 359 Catholic state secondary schools in England and Wales last month asking them to draw attention to a letter by senior archbishops that told Catholics of their “duty” to do “all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations”.

The Catholic Education Service says: “We have been aiming this towards older pupils and parents. The archbishops’ letter is a positive statement of the Church’s support for marriage, rather than negative comments about gay marriage.”

Yes, well, it amounts to the same thing. Hettie marriage is just there. People get on with it without let or hindrance. It’s taken for granted. People do it. Why bother to say what a jolly whiz thing it is if you’re not trying to hold up gay relationships as something to be condemned by comparison?

Good to see that some of the students have got more sense than the Catholic authorities, anyway.

PTT slams Kommandant Keith over gay marriage

The UK gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) – owner of this blog – has slammed Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s condemnation of gay (reported yesterday in Pink Triangle) marriage as totally predictable and bizarre.

O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has said the plans for gay marriage are a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”, and that the idea of redefining marriage, which the UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said he supports, would “shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world”.

George Broadhead, the PTT’s secretary and a veteran gay activist, said: “Given the Roman Catholic Church’s well-known views and policy on gay sexual relationships and rights, including Civil Partnership, not to mention Cardinal O’Brien’s previous homophobic outbursts, his latest are totally predictable.

“His contention that gay marriage would shame the UK in the eyes of the world is also bizarre. Has the cardinal not heard that gay marriage has already been legalised in no fewer than ten countries: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands? I am not aware that any of these countries have suffered shame or any sort of pariah status as a result. This just shows how out of touch with reality the Roman Catholic Church has become.”

Kommandant Keith pronounces on marriage – again

“Catholic cardinal criticises gay marriages plan”.

Believe it or not, the journos at the B bloody B bloody C decided this morning on at least the seven o’clock Radio 4 news (maybe others for all I know) that this was the top story.

It isn’t news.

I’ll say it again.

It isn’t news.

So why are the B bloody B bloody C claiming that it is? OK, so a senior bod in the Catholic Church (he’s Keith O’Brien, the big man in Scotland) has made a pronouncement, and, according to page 37, Clause 3, Subclause 3.5 of the How to Be a Hack and Just Go Along with What’s Expected Instead of Thinking for Yourself prat’s guide to journalism, some news editor decided that a story of sorts had to be done.

But why lead the bulletin on the bloody thing?

What on earth do they expect a bloody high-flying Catholic to do but oppose gay marriage? Sorry, but I thought reporting news was the art of reporting the unusual, or at least the new. It’s not a new pronouncement on the part of these monsters.

To top it all, the B bloody B bloody C has simply nicked the thing from the Sunday Telegraph. That’s where the cardinal’s words are to be found.

So a Catholic cardinal has said something against gay marriage (so far, so predictable) in a rabidly right-wing newspaper.

Blimey, I’ve just watched some paint dry. Fascinating.

Sorry, I was distracted there from a story in a right-wing rag about a right-wing prelate who is against gay marriage.

This twat says that, if same-sex unions are allowed in Britain (and it’s the government’s wish to do so that has prompted his predictable response), it will “shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world”.

Why? And how? Which parts of the world? Those parts that agree with Cardinal bloody Keith bloody O’Brien, that’s all. Which parts of those parts? Is there no diversity of opinion? Yes, there is. So such a statement is meaningless.

Gay marriage, says this moron, “would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father”. Your point being? There’s anecdotal evidence we read here and there that kids brought up with two dads or two mums do just as well.

If they suffer at all, it’s because the likes of Cardinal bloody Keith bloody O’Brien help create an atmosphere in which such kids are going to be teased and possibly bullied.

But that’s a fair price to pay, he would say, for his being able to hold up the sanctity of marriage as the preserve of one man and one woman, as thought fit by God botherers whose time is running out (unless they change their ways).

Kommandant Keith says that same-sex marriage “is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists”. Who defined marriage in the first place? You or your ilk have said hitherto that marriage precedes even the Church, so exactly whom are we robbing of the right to define marriage?

Indeed, in the Telegraph piece he says: “As an institution, marriage long predates the existence of any state or government. It was not created by governments and should not be changed by them.”

Note, though, how the Church is missed out here, the inference we’re meant to draw being that it’s not a state or government thing, so it must be a church thing – or at the very least bound up with religion.

And why should it not be changed by governments? Governments administer formal marriage; they legitimise it for the purposes of tax and benefits and inheritance; they keep track of formal marriages (and divorces) in their records. Perhaps O’Brien should reconsider government’s place in marriage entirely, and say marriage should simply not be officially recognised at all. Just let people get on with it, using whatever ceremonies they choose.

As for what is right or wrong, at one time and in many places today marriage was and is severely frowned upon (and punishable, sometimes by death) among members of different castes, different religions, different classes, different races. Who is going to say that such a thing is wrong, as many would (that love should be allowed to prevail) and then say that marriage of one man to another, one women to another, is wrong, too (that love should not be allowed to prevail)?

Then we move to semantics. “Can a word whose meaning has been clearly understood in every society throughout history suddenly be changed to mean something else?” asks Kommandant Keith? Yes, it can. Word meanings change all the time. They change with changing habits, changing conventions.

One definition of “marry” is to splice rope ends together (it’s used as a nautical term here, of course). Are the ropes meant to be one male and one female? It’s also used in a nonspecialist sense to bring two things together harmoniously.

“There is no doubt that, as a society, we have become blasé about the importance of marriage as a stabilising influence and less inclined to prize it as a worthwhile institution.” The implication here is that it cannot be a stabilising influence if it is within a same-sex arrangement, and nor can it be worthwhile. Who is he to tell us whether our marriages are worthwhile? Such arrogance.

And back to the child “Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father.”

Is he happy, then, with failed marriages, provided they’re straight ones? There are many kids being brought up, for better or worse, but often successfully and lovingly, by single mums and dads because of death or divorce or simply because the father of a child is unknown.

Then he uses the slippery-slope argument. If you can have marriage between two of the same sex, why not three? But no one’s saying there will be three. Why, I could add, not a man, a woman and a dog, or just a man and a goat? The fact is, such things haven’t been discussed.

He chooses as a quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this: “. . . the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.

Yes? Well there are families of two dads and a couple of kids? Or one mum and a kid? Combine them how you will, people come together into families and often benefit from the mutual love and support such an arrangement provides. That can only be a good thing.

I wonder if he’ll be so happy to cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights if it’s revamped to take same-sex unions into account explicitly. It will then magically have become the work of the Devil, no doubt.

(FYI, I don’t actually go along with state-endorsed, formal marriage, anyway, but it’s this chap’s specious argument that’s got me going.)

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.

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.

How Ratzo may do Ireland a big favour – by not going there

Pope Ratzinger may may do the Irish people a great favour by threatening to stamp his foot and throw his toys out of the pram if the Irish pursue their plan to shut their embassy in the Vatican.

If they do go ahead with it – and of course they should – he may decide not to attend the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin next summer.

Well that’ll save Ireland a lot of money, if the monster’s visit to England last year (and other countries, of course) is anything to go by.

Abortion ads on TV? Wait for the proverbial to hit the fan

This is going to be a helluva can of worms. God botherers will be out in force.

“Private clinics that charge for pregnancy services including abortions will be able to advertise on television and radio under new rules,” says the BBC.

The new law takes effect in April.

One comment beneath the BBC story says, “Abortion is always a terrible thing whatever your ethical and moral beliefs on the issue.”

And that’s true. I’m not sure about advertising abortion clinics when, say, murderous tobacco can’t be advertised. I’m not comfortable about abortion on demand as a form of contraception. I don’t feel qualified to state an opinion, although such a lack of qualification won’t stop what I expect will be a deluge of protest.

I do believe, however, that abortion should be available on demand when a mother’s life or wellbeing is at stake, where there’s been a rape, even when the baby might suffer a shitty life because of a known serious problem with its brain or limbs. And I believe the Catholic Church should be put publicly in its place when it gets on its high horse about abortion.

I recall one story from Brazil in which anyone who helped a young, frail girl to have an abortion – a young, frail girl who’d been raped by her stepfather and was expecting twins – would be excommunicated, and that meant doctors and her mother. Whatever you think of the damnably silly business of excommunication, it’s a serious thing to devout believers and can ruin their lives.

This little girl might not have survived the birth. Fortunately, the abortion went ahead.

We reported on that in 2009 – rather angrily, as I recall.

But abortion nonetheless is not something that should be taken lightly. And the reason I mention the ads story at all is that it will be the religious element that will bleat the most, as if no one else could put forward a moral case for or against advertising abortion clinics. My reference above shows that religion can’t take the moral high ground in such matters.

Decisions should be taken on medical and social grounds, not because an imagined deity might not like the idea – a deity, it has to be said, that sanctions genocide and other horrors in the Old Testament.

Pillock!

Here’s hoping you find this in
your Christmas cake, Mr O’Brien!

Our old fiend (spelling deliberate) Cardinal Keith O’Brien is at it again: denouncing love.

Well, he would say that what he’s actually denouncing is evil.

This leader of the Catholic Deluded Herd in Scotland is another of those who think same-sex marriage is some kind of threat to opposite-sex marriage.

He joined other figures yesterday to deliver speeches outside the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh.

“The Roman Catholic Church intends to deliver 20,000 postcards to the Scottish Parliament signed by Scottish people who oppose gay marriage,” says Pink News.

It quotes O’Brien as saying: “As an institution, marriage long predates the existence of any state or government. It was not created by government and should not be changed by them.

“Instead, recognising the innumerable benefits which marriage brings to society they should act to protect and uphold it, not attack or dismantle it.

“At the heart of this debate, however, there is one perspective which seems to be completely lost or ignored: it is the point of view of the child.

“All children deserve to begin life with a mother and father; the evidence in favour of the stability and wellbeing which this provides is overwhelming and unequivocal.”

Well allow me to correct you, you blithering evil oaf. Marriage as a legal institution, which is what this is all about, was created by governments. Who else could make it a legal thing? Whether you recognise a couple’s union as marriage by your hocus-pocus – sorry, religious – terminology is up to you, but don’t expect sane people to take you seriously, you pompous arsehole.

(Sorry, I’m getting a bit carried away here, but this ridiculous tosser has just got right up my nose, the pillock.)

Marriage as a religious institution was created by people – men. You, Mr O’Brien, would claim, I assume – though you don’t in this story – that it was created by God. That’s tosh, I’m afraid. There is no evidence whatsoever. Anyway, he told me he had nothing to do with it.

Then there’s this shit about kids. Whatever the debate about whether a kid is better brought up by a male and a female, the fact is that gay people adopt kids who might otherwise languish till adulthood in institutions. As for creating kids using surrogacy, I’m a tiny bit iffy. While there are kids in institutions wanting stable homes, it seems a bit of a waste to add another consumer to the mix, but there you go – that’s not our argument here.

What kids deserve, Mr O-sodding-Brien, is a stable loving home. There are gay couples aplenty just ready, willing and able to provide it.

Basically, you’re talking crap to support your prejudice – a prejudice that betrays an intrinsic moral evil in you and your kind.

I hope you find a rat in your Christmas cake.

Religion versus spirituality

The leader of the Catholic Church in Dublin is getting into a hissy fit about the fact that Ireland has closed down its embassy in the Vatican. Yes, some countries have embassies in the Vatican.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny says the decision was made purely on cost-cutting grounds.

“But Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s latest comments [about the closure] will only fuel the suspicion that relations between Church and State are at an all time low,” says Irish Central.

Martin, you see, has a problem with the fact that some people see religion as a private thing, and thinks it ought to be an inseparable, joined-at-the-hip part of national life.

Not happy with having the freedom to practise their religion (which is as it should be), not happy with having special privileges, tax breaks and the ear of government, these bloody idiots think it ought to be imposed on everyone, and that their tax euros should be spent on upholding an embassy in La-La Land. Here’s a further taste of what this idiot’s statement says:

Societies like our own where faith and the Christian life once flourished and faith communities were strong are now undergoing a far-reaching transformation.

The reality of God is slowly being eclipsed and people are living their lives as if God does not exist. It is not so much an atmosphere of hostility towards faith but an attitude of indifference or one which tolerates a presence for God in the private lives of individuals but much less within the realities of our society.

Some who felt that religion was destined to be relegated to the purely private sphere are surprised by the fact that religion has come back to centre stage in international relations. [Has it?]

This is not just about a surge in forms of fundamentalism. Faith is not just part of the problem; religion is so central in the life and mentality of many that it cannot but be part of the solution to central problems of international relations today.

Well, for one thing, international relations might be a lot better off if the complication of religion were taken out the equation. It’s just noise.

For another thing, he’s mixing up God with religion. People have all kinds of ideas about the origins of the universe and whether some kind of noncorporeal progenitor might have been bored and decided to get out the Play-Doh.

The thing is, we’ll never know.

But look what an unholy mess religion has made of the idea, with its Babel of conflicting ideas and ideals. So God, if you believe in one, is a personal thing, because he/she/it has so many versions that it’s impossible to impose him/her/it universally.

But these believers in fairies think they have a special place in the world, and should be central to all things.

I can go along with the idea of spirituality, because it doesn’t have to imply things beyond the experienced world, and one can get a spiritual experience out of a Beethoven symphony or some electro-synth, out of a Dalí painting or out of a toke on a spliff (try all three at once: it’s like, wow, man).

It can also rely on a belief in the supernatural.

Either way, it’s very personal. But these dictators who want to shove their ideas down the throat of every citizen make me suddenly want to develop warm feelings towards Hitler.

Another celibate man in a frock talks of ‘foolish’ gay marriage

Another suitable case for treatment has been sounding off in Scotland about same-sex marriage.

It would render marriage “meaningless”, avers the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti. And those who advocate it are “foolish”.

Earlier this week it was Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholics in Scotland (see Gay marriage would “rewrite nature”, says celibate man wearing a frock).

As to whether marriage is meaningless, is that not a question for those who are married and not those whose vocation renders them unable to be so (unless they give up their nonsense, of course)?

And why is allowing same-sex marriage foolish? In what way? Only fools advocate same-sex marriage? Everyone who advocates same-sex marriage is a fool, an idiot, a prat?

The 2010 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey found that 61 per cent of the Scottish public support allowing gay couples to wed. Are they all foolish – 61 per cent of the entire population (some of them, no doubt, followers of the Catholic Church if not all its tenets)?

Nope. These blithering idiots of preachermen don’t think much for themselves. They don’t need to when they have a huge canon of Catholic literature to make up their minds for them.

In a letter to the Herald this week, Conti wrote:

In a proposed consultation regarding the redefinition of civil partnerships, we are talking not of human rights or of civil liberties, nor of legal or fiscal equalities, but of redefining a particular relationship to give it a meaning it doesn’t possess.

We would use a word which carries huge significance, and render it meaningless in respect of one of its essential attributes, its capacity to create a natural family – I mean of course marriage. That 60 per cent of the population, according to one poll, is of a mind to accept that change may suggest to some a liberal society, but to others a foolish one.

There you go, then. It’s a foolish society.

As for redefining a relationship to “give it a meaning it does not possess”, who gives things meaning? Meaning is an entirely human concept. Humans attach meaning to things, and meanings change according to how things are viewed.

Oh, I was forgetting. Catholics don’t do that sort of thing. Only God breathes meaning into things. Silly me!

Gay marriage would ‘rewrite nature’, says celibate man wearing a frock

It could come only from a bloody Catholic! People who want marriage for same-sex couples want to “rewrite nature”, according to some idiot in Scotland called Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

Unsurprisingly, he says any plans for same-sex marriage will be strenuously opposed. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s just doing his job. That’s what he does: fosters hatred.

He was responding to an announcement by the Scottish government of a consultation on the issue.

“The view of the church is clear,” says this nutcase: “no government can rewrite human nature; the family and marriage existed before the state and are built on the union between a man and woman.

“Any attempt to redefine marriage is a direct attack on a foundational building block of society and will be strenuously opposed.”

Well we can sit here all day and pick holes in the logic of this hogwash. For starters, it’s not within nature for a man and woman to get married at all. It’s within nature for them to shag; but, then, it’s within nature for two men or two women to put their things together, too.

And whether marriage existed before the state is irrelevant. Many things existed before the state that states have subsequently changed, and he doesn’t seem to be objecting to those, be they a ban on barbaric punishments or laws against walking around stark naked. (I’m sure you can think of more, dear reader.)

Anyway, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says the government is in favour of marriage equality while allowing religious groups the right not to hold ceremonies. What more does this buffoon want?

How the Catholic Church buggers up people’s lives: Part 963

A lesson in how to mess up the lives not only of those you persecute and hate but the people they care about comes in a moving story in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Ron Bates tells us how he felt he had to get married because of the guilt forced on him by the Catholic Church.

When Mr Bates was Master Bates, he was growing up in rural Minnesota as part of a devout Catholic family.

While attending St. John’s Prep School in Collegeville [he writes], I confessed to a priest that I was attracted to another boy who slept across from me. The priest responded that if I ever acted on that, I would go to hell.

As a sincere Catholic teen, I did not act on my attraction but started a harmful journey of self-loathing and personal destruction. I didn’t know what “homosexual” or “gay” were, but I understand “queer” and thought it was evil and perverted.

And so he eventually got married, but the sexual part of the marriage was repulsive to him, “and that was communicated indirectly to my ex-wife. That is the most unfair part. She was one of the innocent victims in the masquerade of ‘I'm straight.’ ”

You can read the story here.

Ratzo and Mugabe – perfect bedfellows

The gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (owner of this blog) has noted without surprise that the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has attended the beatification of John Paul II, which was held in the Vatican on 1 May.

An EU travel ban forbids Mugabe from visiting member states, but the Vatican is a sovereign state and not in the EU. The ban was imposed in 2002 on account of Mugabe’s gross human-rights abuses but Italy, a founder EU member, granted Mugabe an exemption to transit through the country. A Vatican spokesman said Mugabe had not been personally invited but as the head of a state with which the Vatican has relations he was entitled to attend.

Commenting on behalf of the Pink Triangle Trust, secretary George Broadhead said: “Mugabe’s attendance at the ceremony comes as no great surprise. As a fellow Roman Catholic, he shares at least one trait in common with both the late beatified pope and the present one – an entrenched homophobia.

“He is viciously hostile to homosexuality, declaring on one occasion: ‘I find it extremely outrageous and repugnant to my human conscience that such immoral and repulsive organisations, like those of homosexuals, who offend both against the law of nature and the morals of religious beliefs espoused by our society, should have any advocates in our midst and elsewhere in the world’; and on another occasion: ‘It [homosexuality] degrades human dignity. It’s unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings . . . What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police.’

“Only last month at the funeral of his deputy intelligence chief,” Broadhead continued, “Mugabe described Britain’s tolerance of gay rights ‘unnatural’ and ‘filth’.

“Though rather more restrained in his choice of words, the present pope has shown himself to be equally homophobic, so Mugabe will have found himself in good company. It seems that the Vatican has chosen to ignore Mugabe’s gross human-rights abuses, just as it ignored those of the Roman Catholic fascist dictators Adolf Hitler, with whom Mugabe has compared himself, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet. By granting an exemption to the travel ban it seems that Italy has also chosen to ignore the human-rights abuses.”

Scotland’s Catholic head honcho tries to out-Pope the Pope

The Pink Triangle Trust reckons the nutter who leads the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland – Cardinal Keith O’Brien – is trying to out-Ratzo Ratzo.

O’Brien has said on the BBC: “Perhaps more than ever before there is that ‘aggressive secularism’ and there are those who would indeed try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square. Religion must not be taken from the public square.”

PTT secretary George Broadhead said: “It seems as if O’Brien is trying to outdo his boss in the Vatican with his anti-secularist and anti-gay rhetoric. When referring to the enemies of the Christian faith in Britain, he no doubt has in mind organisations like the National Secular Society, which campaigns for a society where everyone is free to practise their religion, change it or not have one, but asserts that religion must not have privileged influence in the public and political arenas where it can so easily become an excuse for conflict, inequality and injustice. The National Secular Society provides some of the most vociferous support for LGBT people and their rights.”

Wise counsel?

Giving Catholics a contract for sensitive counselling of possibly vulnerable people is like putting a lunatic in charge of the asylum, a paedo in charge of the nursery, a klepto in charge of the shop.

But Richmond Council in England has done just that, and the gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust is not a little dischuffed about it.

The silly councillors think the Catholic Children’s Society will handle it better than a secular organisation, Off the Record, which has been providing the service for the past two decades.*

Let’s just clear one thing up: secular doesn’t mean atheist, and a secular organisation will very likely contain religious people as well as atheists and agnostics. But a religious organisation is going to peddle a position, and would you want a gay kid, say, being advised by an active Catholic?

Oh, it’ll be all right, son, you’ll grow out of it; Jesus will help; pray to God; it’s a phase; God meant you to love a woman (et cetera, et cetera, reversing the genders as necessary).

George Broadhead, secretary of the PTT – which is this blog’s parent body – said, “The issues on which counselling service will be provided to teenagers include contraception, unwanted pregnancy and homophobic bullying.

“Given the dogmatic and reactionary stance taken by the Catholic Church on abortion, contraception and homosexuality, which will clearly be strictly adhered to by the CCS, the decision of the Council is outrageous and beggars belief. I hope that young people will be well enough informed about the Church’s stance to give the CCS a very wide berth indeed.”

We have to entertain the possibility that there were other reasons why Off the Record was not chosen this time. That’s something between OTR and the council. But choosing an organisation whose ethos is so anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-contraception to counsel vulnerable people whose problems may well concern these things seems unwise in the extreme.
__________
* Corrected from my original “two years”. Mea culpa. Thanks, George (see comments).

Criticising Catholics for hating gays? It's a blow to their human rights, so it is

Bloody Catholic loonies are at it again. They're complaining that being criticised for hating gays is somehow against their human rights. They feel they have a human right – a human right – to vilify gays and declare all same-sex relationships disordered, no matter what harm it does by the toxic message it sends.

A Reuters report tells us:

People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the Roman Catholic Church deeply believed that human sexuality was a gift reserved for married heterosexual couples. But those who express these views are faced with "a disturbing trend," he said.

If it weren't so sad you'd laugh.

See the story here.