Under the sheets

It’s New York, not Paris, that’s currently burning in an off-Broadway drag show entitled Wig Out!.

Its dynamic actors remind one of the 1990 documentary film Paris is Burning, which described the ball culture of poor African-American and Latino gay and transgendered people who engaged in drag balls that involved contests in new-way and old-way vogue dancing.

In the first of two acts, we meet five males who live in the House of Light, two who live in the House of Di’Abolique, The Fates 3 (gals who explain the action in song, much like a Greek chorus), and Eric, a seemingly straight handsome guy who is tempted to come out.

In Act II, we see the two houses engage competitively as they “walk” the runway and are judged on appearance, dance skills, costume, and attitude. With laughter and tears, the audience marvels at the elaborate costumes, the consummate performances by every actor, and the unexpected conclusion.

In November 2008, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play was shown at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Since opening at the Vineyard Theater on 30 September to rave reviews, the play has been sold out nightly and will close in November.

To get ticket holders back to their seats after intermission, a several-hundred-pound femme queen dishes individuals who are late or eating, “shading” or “dissing” them so the show can go on.

Straights are shocked. Gays and lesbians are picking which person they want to meet afterwards at the stage door (like Erik King, Clifton Oliver, or Andre Holland, the last of whom, if you sit close to the stage during the nude sex scene, you can see under the sheet).

Sarajevo attack criticised

European parliamentarians have condemned the recent attacks on organisers of and participants in the Sarajevo Queer Festival by a homophobic mob, some of them Muslims

“The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly also drew attention to the discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Pink News tells us.

The Assembly has called on the authorities to “ensure their protection and promptly and thoroughly investigate any attacks against them and bring those responsible to justice”.

The first gay festival in Bosnia came under attack last month. Read the full story here.

Loving Christianity, Catholic style

More good Christian love comes today via the pages of the Catholic Herald, which informs us that a Catholic bishop in the UK has threatened to evict an adoption agency from church premises because it doesn’t follow the narrow and distinctly senseless Catholic “teaching” on sexuality.

It’s about the new gay-rights laws, of course, and how services are now supposed to be provided irrespective of the sexuality of the person doing the seeking. The trustees of the agency have said they wish to comply with the law, but the bigoted bish feels, we’re left to assume, that his mindless superstitions are above the law and above common decency.

“Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster also warned the Catholic Caring Services that he would begin legal action to recover thousands of pounds left by Catholics in legacies and wills if it did not imminently change its position,” the paper says, and continues:

In a letter to the trustees, Bishop Donoghue said the agency could no longer consider itself to be Catholic if it assessed same-sex couples as potential adopters or foster parents.

“I find it unthinkable, indeed heart-breaking, that Catholic Caring Services, so linked to the Catholic Church since its inception, would abandon its position and capitulate to recent same-sex adoption legislation,” he said.

“As your bishop I cannot give permission to an agency of the Catholic Church to act in opposition to her teaching and her long and rich experience of the placement of children with adoptive parents.”

The bishop added, “On grounds of conscience, formed by faith, we believe that same-sex partnerships do not provide the essential characteristics necessary for the well-being and development of the child.”

Not conscience formed by compassion, you’ll note. It’s conscience “formed by faith”. And that says it all.

He’s given the agency a week to change its ways. Then he’ll apply to the Charity Commission for it to be stripped of its right to call itself Catholic, with all that that implies, including a review of leases on church-owned property.

The agency currently finds caring homes for some 25 kids a year in Lancashire and Cumbria. If it breaks from the Catholic Church, it will be the fifth to do so. The Herald story has all the details.

Russia's first gay event – not!

It seems Russia won’t be getting its first official public gay event in the cit of Tambov after all.

We reported on Wednesday (see “Russia’s first gay event”), citing a story in Pink News, that Russia was likely to see such an event, which would be good news.

However, it's not good news after all, as we learn from Gay Russia, under the headline Tambov mayor gave up to homophobes: First Authorized Russian gay picket is finally banned.

This source tells us:

In its letter of denial, sent to the organisers on Thursday, the city hall argued that the view of the majority of the citizen of Tambov as well as the impossibility for local police to secure the event are sufficient reasons to ban tomorrow’s [today’s] action.

Earlier on Monday the city administration had verbally authorized the event but asked for a new location. The organizers submitted the next day an amended application as requested by the authorities.

Between Tuesday and today pressure put on Tambov Mayor has been intense and the city hall changed its decision.

Nikolai Alekseev, one of the organisers of the planned picket, is quoted as saying, “These arguments are in full contradiction not only with Russian Constitution but also with the European Convention on Human Rights. As always, we will take this unlawful ban through the Russian court system up to the Strasbourg court.”

Some good news is that an exhibition called LGBT Rights is to be staged in Moscow in December, according to a website of that name.

For “all couples who consider themselves as a family there will be an opportunity to embody their union”, it says, and there will be a professional photographer on hand. “There will be exhibited works which show family values of LGBT representatives,” it adds.

We’ll bring you more news on this nearer the time.
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Thanks to Nicolas Alexeyev for the tip-off.

Pride for posterity

Britain is to get its first gay museum. All kinds of minorities have been catered for, says a story in today’s Independent. Now, Britain will get a museum called Proud Nation.

But there is one section of the British community that has never been represented in a museum, even though it accounts for as much as 10 per cent of the population. Jack Gilbert, the executive director of Proud Heritage, hopes to change that in three years’ time when the country’s first gay museum, opens in London’s King’s Cross. It will be called Proud Nation.

“It’s an invisible history which couldn’t be told because it couldn’t be researched, but that has changed now,” he says. “It will be serious on one level, because we believe that, to have full equality our history, our culture and the full diversity of our lived experience has to be to be recorded and represented. But it will be fun, too.”

One exhibit he hopes to get is the door to the cell that held Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, where he did much of his two years’ hard labour for so-called “gross indecency”.

First they came . . .

Here’s an interesting take on how it’s easy to sit back and think, But it doesn’t affect me.

In a moment I’ll give you three paragraphs from an article called “While we weren’t looking” from Transitions Online, a news outlet for post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe. They relate to last month’s Sarajevo event that would have shown gay-related film and other arts.

But some Muslims took it into their primitive, bone-headed minds that this was not to be. People were beaten up in the streets, dragged out of cars. A Danish national was almost killed. Here are three paragraphs, but the article (it’s in two short parts) is well worth reading.

Once some people get showered with stones again in places where they are the minority and thus get on the majority’s nerves, “We did not know” will sound as exactly what it is: an ordinary lie.

Once the long-haired guy from the second floor comes back home with his eyebrow ridge broken and his eye closed due to a blow received because he held his girlfriend’s hand while walking in town, “We did not know” will sound as exactly what it is: an ordinary lie.

Once the girl with whom half of the children in the neighborhood are in love returns [home] in tears and beaten up because she left the house in a top that does not cover her bellybutton, “We did not know” will sound as exactly what it is: an ordinary lie.

The thesis of the piece is (and this is its strapline, too) that “Bosnians’ indifference to last month’s attacks on Gay Pride attendees could come back to haunt them.”

We all need to take care. One is reminded of that poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller, “First they came . . .”. There are variations on the verse. Here is one of them:

They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Ex-Muslims meet in London

A group of those who have had both the good sense and the courage to part company from the dreadful religion of Islam are gathering in London tomorrow for their first international conference.

Among the speakers will be the distinguished biologist and author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins and the philosopher A C Grayling.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) are calling the conference “Political Islam, Sharia Law and Civil Society”, and it coincides with International Day Against the Death Penalty.

This is a deliberate choice, because apostasy in Islam is punishable by death.

The conference is from 10 till 6 at Conway Hall in London, and speakers, as well as Dawkins and Grayling, include Maryam Namazie, spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; the journalist Johann Hari; Caspar Melville, editor of New Humanist; Taslima Nasreen; Terry Sanderson and Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society; the journalst Joan Smith; Hanne Stinson of the British Humanist Association; and the author of Why I Am Not a Muslim Ibn Warraq.

But there are more, and the event includes a comedy act by Nick Doody; the work of a well-known artist; Fitna Remade, the film by Reza Moradi; and Breaking the Taboo by Patty Debonitas.

You can register from 9 a.m. tomorrow, so there’s still time to get a place – £10 for individuals, £40 for statutory organisations and £20 for voluntary-sector representatives.

Russia's first gay event

There will be a gay public event in Russia after all. It won’t be a Pride march, but it will be a protest against homophobia.

“Gay rights activists in Russia have managed to secure permission to hold a picket against a homophobic politician in the city of Tambov,” the online Pink News tells us. “City authorities approved the protest yesterday, the first time a gay public event has been authorised in Russia.”

Many gay campaigners have followed events in Russia. All similar actions in Moscow and St Petersburg have hitherto been rejected by the local authorities. The Mayor of Moscow has severely suppressed the last three attempts – in 2006, 2007 and this year – to hold a Pride event.

The news outlet tells us:

Tambov, 500km from Moscow, is also considering an application from gay campaigners Nicolas Alexeyev and Anna Komarova for a Pride march in the city later this month.

The picket against homophobia, to held on Friday, is in protest against the regional governor Oleg Betin.

In May, he declared in an interview: “Tolerance? To hell! Faggots should be torn apart. And their pieces should be thrown in the wind.”

What a charming man!

The same month, the organisers of the Moscow Gay Pride asked for a criminal investigation against Mr Betin.

The activists filled a complaint with the local court after the prosecutors declined to initiate a criminal investigation.

Alexeyev is quoted as saying, “The governor of Tambov region expressed insults towards homosexual people. We want him to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Our planned picket will be another opportunity for the discussion of these homophobic expressions.”

A second event, planned for 18 October, is a march for tolerance and respect for the rights of Russian lesbians and gays. City authorities are said to be considering the request.

Currently, five applications against Pride bans are awaiting consideration in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Muslim group wrong – says Muslim

There’s a new advisory group in the UK made up of young Muslims – aged 16 to 25 – to advise ministers on extremism and discrimination.

But that’s come under fire today – from a Muslim peer who questions, Why a group for Muslims; why a group based on religion?

Baroness Warsi is the shadow minister for community cohesion, and, in a story in The Times today, points that Muslims face the same issues as young people from other backgrounds, and says it’s wrong to choose advisory groups purely on the basis of faith.

It was Warsi who last year helped to secure the release of an English teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Now she’s spoken out after the UK government named the 22 members of its first Young Muslim Advisory Group.

“To select a group of 22 young people, however talented they may be, to advise the government on 'Muslim issues' is patronising and deeply concerning,” she says in The Times.

"When will the government learn that the Muslim community is not a homogenous [sic] block, and the issues its young people face are predominantly the same issues that all young people in this country face, whatever their background, race or religion?

"Actions such as this are a continuation of the government's policy of state multiculturalism, which creates a more divided Britain."

Is that the government are allowing ever more “faith schools”? You don’t get more divided than dividing people in their formative years, allowing their sense of otherness to develop throughout their school years.

The members of the new group were announced yesterday and its first meeting with ministers will be within weeks.

The Times says, “The Young Muslim Advisory Group, made up equally of men and women, includes three Oxford University graduates, several medical students, a teenager who is currently studying for seven A-levels and a solicitor who is also Cub Scout leader.”

Gay West African gets refuge in USA

It’s emerged that a gay West African who was made a fugitive in his home country has been granted leave to stay in the USA.

Pape Mbaye – a 24-year-old Senegalese native – had been accused of arranging a gay wedding, and was pursued by angry mobs.

The Boston website Edge tells the story, saying it’s “one of a scant few instances in which a gay foreigner has been taken in because he would be in danger if left in his home nation”.

Mbaye earned his living in Dakar as a singer and danger, until the story appeared in February in a magazine about a purported gay wedding. And that was when his troubles began.

“I feel good,” Mbaye is quoted as saying of being in America. “There’s security, there’s independence, there’s peace.”

Aisha: on . . . off . . . on again

An American publisher has now published The Jewel of Medina ahead of schedule after a British publisher’s home was fire-bombed by what are thought to be Islamic extremists who don’t like the idea of freedom of expression.

The BBC tells us that Beaufort Books will now publish the Sherry Jones historical novel:

Beaufort Books said it was publishing the novel ahead of schedule so it could be assessed on its merits as literature rather than the potential offence it could cause to Muslims.

Beaufort’s president, Eric Kampmann, said: “We felt that [. . .] it was better for everybody [. . .] to let the conversation switch from a conversation about terrorists and fearful publishers to a conversation about the merits of the book itself.”

However, Sherry Jones herself (pictured above) doesn’t come well out of an assessment by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the Daily Beast.

Ali writes:

Ms Jones does not question the morality of the prophet. She does not judge him in a negative way. There is no hidden meaning between-the-lines that will inspire young Muslim female readers to question their faith or the inconveniences of marrying against one’s will, nor of sharing your husband with a dozen other women, nor even why it is wrong to be married off as a child to a man four times your age. In fact, Ms Jones makes the same lame excuses that Muslims make to condone the prophet’s behavior.

From a moral perspective, I can find nothing in this poorly written book that deviates from the standard Islamic teachings. The only character in Ms Jones’s book that is close to an antagonist is Umar ibn Khattab, a warrior Khalif and a hero in the Sunni version of Islam, mainly because of his dramatic conversion to Islam and his conquests for the Khalifate. However, beyond his hot temper and his determination to put women in their place – in the Arab-Islamic mind both traits are admirable – the author does not succeed in making him into a bad character.

Ali also criticised Jones for not condemning Mohammed for having sex with a nine-year-old girl. “From my perspective, Ms Jones’s novel does not come close toward helping Muslim women imagine that there is a reality beyond subjugation,” writes Ali.

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Hat tip: MediaWatchWatch and New Humanist blog.

Tattoo their arses, says preacherman

Here’s a shining example of Christian love. There’s this loony priest in London who wants all gays to have tattoos – on their arses.

Well, nothing wrong in that, you may argue. Many gays rather like the idea.

But this chap wrote on his blog:

It is time that religious believers began to recommend [. . .] discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets.

Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills.

This chap, 66-year-old Peter Mullen, rector of St Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London, has now been given a ticking-off by his diocese. He told a newspaper that the remarks were written as a joke.

But a spokeswoman for the Diocese of London has said that officials met Mullen and it had been agreed that the comments should be removed.

“While clergy are entitled to their own personal views,” she says, “we fully recognise that the content of this text is highly offensive and it is in no way reflective of the views of the Diocese of London.”

Now I’m all for free speech, and, if he wants to make that recommendation, let him go ahead and make it, provided he’s not inciting violence or intending to commit it. He will be ridiculed if he meant it, and, indeed, seems to have got a comeuppance of sorts.

If he didn’t mean it, then he should have thought of how such words were going to be received coming from a preacherman and not a well-meaning comedian, who could get away with it, because it would be couched in comedic style and taken in good spirit. Mullen, after all, represents a church that is noted for its homophobia. Of course he’s going to be taken seriously.

In the same blog post, he said, according to the Independent, that all Pride parades should be outlawed as “obscene” and condemned the blessing of two gay priests in London earlier this year.

Mullen, in his defence, says, “I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they're light-hearted jokes.

“I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.

“What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality.”

Ah, now we get to the nub. It’s OK to preach the religions of hatred against homosexuals (granted, not all religionists are antigay, but many are) but not OK to be “preaching of homosexuality”, whatever that means.

Preaching? What is the man on? He walks around in a dog collar (we assume) and has no compunction in telling people who he is and which organisation he works for. Is that not a blatant show of his own persuasions?

Perhaps his diocese should have ordered him to have I am a prat tattooed on his forehead.

Remembering Matthew

It’s ten years to the day that Matthew Shepard was attacked by homophobic thugs near Laramie in Wyoming. He survived in a coma for five days. Then he died.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation continues to ensure that the name of Matthew Wayne Shepard – a student at the University of Wyoming – is remembered.

Shepard’s murder – for which two men are serving life, one without the chance of parole – brought the subject of hate crime to national and international attention, and led to legislation at both state and federal levels in the USA.

The Laramie Project is an award-winning play (on which a film was subsequently based) depicting his life and death, and among the venues it’s due to be seen are Napa Opera House in Napa Valley, CA, and the Woman’s Club in Minneapolis, both on 19 October.

The website says:

In observance of the ten years since the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, the Matthew Shepard Foundation launched an aggressive anti-hate campaign aimed at creating a movement of people working to lessen the impact of hate in society. Realizing the importance of this 10th year observance, Judy Shepard [Matthew’s mother], Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, launched the “Campaign to Erase Hate” by asking the crowd of more than 500 people to raise themselves to the power of ten and join with her in helping the Foundation fulfill its mission of erasing hate.

The overall goal of this new campaign is to equip individuals with the necessary tools to discuss and address hate in our society. These tools include personal webpages, resources on dealing with hateful speech and actions, monthly correspondence and most importantly, a way to invite ten others to join.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem gone bones

“Nature has thwarted the Vatican’s heartless plot to violate Cardinal Newman’s request to be buried with the man he loved, Father Ambrose St John,” according to the gay- and human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell (see our earlier post, “Dem bones, dem bones, dem gay bones”.

Tatchell was commenting on the revelation that Newman’s body has decomposed to nothing, leaving an empty grave and frustrating plans by the Catholic Church to dismember his body and display his bones as holy relics.

“The Vatican wanted to rebury the Cardinal’s remains in a marble tomb, separate from St John, to dampen speculation that he might have been gay.

“Newman’s and St John’s bodies have decomposed together, uniting them for ever in the same soil. They cannot now be separated, as the Catholic Church planned. Cardinal Newman’s wishes have triumphed over the Vatican’s homophobia,” says Tatchell.

Only last week, says Tatchell, the Catholic MP and Justice Minister Bridget Prentice wrote to him reiterating and justifying the government’s decision to grant an exceptional exhumation and reburial licence to the Catholic Church. She wrote:

I was aware of Cardinal Newman’s own recorded views regarding his place of burial. I took these views into consideration when deciding to grant the licence but did not consider them to be the overriding consideration in this case.

Tatchell had previously queried “whether it was appropriate for a Catholic minister to make the decision to accede to the Vatican’s request for Newman’s reburial and whether the minister’s Catholic faith may have influenced her ruling in favour of the church”.

Just a thought? Doesn’t Cardinal Newman look like Albert Steptoe?*
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* For the benefit of non-British readers, Albert Steptoe is a fictional character in an old and excellent sitcom called Steptoe and Son, which was about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business. Albert, played by the late Wilfrid Brambell, was the father.

Hall of Infamy

America’s Museum of Broadcast Communications is heading for a mass protest next month if it doesn’t revoke its decision to induct into its Radio Hall of Fame a man who thinks gay marriage will destroy the earth.

Yes, it appears the right-wing extremist James Dobson really does think that, and there’s a dedicated website called Dump Dobson.

Dobson seems a nasty piece of work. As you can see from his Wikipedia entry, James Clayton “Jim” Dobson is a Christian nutcase and chairman of the board of Focus on the Family, with all that that name implies.

Focus on the Family is also the name of a radio programme he presents. And it is for this that the Museum of Broadcast Communications seeks to induct him.

The Dump Dobson site says:

Dobson runs a so-called “ex-gay” program and has said that allowing gay people to marry will “destroy the earth.” In the past two years, at least seven researchers in three countries have accused Dobson of distorting their research to back his anti-gay teachings.

Unless the Museum reverses its outrageous and offensive decision to honor this dishonest demagogue, Truth Wins Out will join the Gay Liberation Network and a coalition of Chicago organizations to protest the annual Radio Hall of Fame awards dinner.

The protest is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 8, 5:30 PM–7:30 PM, at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel, 1 W Wacker Drive.

The site also makes suggestions as to how you can campaign and – if you’re Chicago way – even take part in the protest.
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Hat tip to Stuart Harthill of Clinging to a Rock for drawing our attention to this.

Now you can get it off Pat

One of our favourite viodographers, Pat Condell, whose site is linked to on our sidebar, has been blocked from YouTube. Guess what his subject was.

You’ve guessed it: Islam.

In informing the world of this Europe News links to the video and to Condell’s website.

YouTube has a thing about Turkey and Pakistan, we’re told. It feels that it just ought to keep its head down, or, as Europe News puts it, it has “decided that it is easier to block ‘problematic’ content” rather than stand up “for freedom and have Pakistani Internet operators wreck [sic] havoc on them”.

The story says that, in his latest video, “Pat Condell sure manages to step on some toes”. But that is “well deserved”, it says, “for what happens is serious and what he has to say is important. Too important to censor, so here is a transcript of the start of the video . . .” It then gives the transcript:

Hi everyone

You may remember that, a couple of weeks ago, it was revealed that sharia courts are now operating here in Britain, with the full backing of the law, even though they discriminate against women as a matter of course.

And what this means is that those women who are intimidated into using these courts, as some of them will be, and everyone knows it, they will now find that they have the full weight of the British legal system lined up against them, alongside the patriarch cal bigotry in their own communities.

Those women who are cheated out of their just entitlements in these places, as some already have been, will find that they have no recourse to the real law to put things right. In other words, we are now accommodating Saudi Arabian legal principles here in Britain.

Other users are posting the vid back onto YouTube using their own accounts. How long it will be allowed to remain is anyone's guess. But we’re proud to bring you the video via this blog. Here it is:



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UPDATE: We're glad to report that YouTube reinstated Condell's video, having reviewed its content.

BJ KO's PC PC

So, London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, has achieved what others failed to – the removal of Sir Ian Blair.

Earlier this afternoon, the UK’s most senior police officer – who has been the Metropolitan Police commissioner since 2005 – announced his resignation, despite making it known that he would have liked to continue in the post until his contract expired in 2010.

Blair claimed that his decision had been forced upon him in a “pleasant but determined” way by the mayor. Johnson wished to see a “change of leadership. Without the mayor's backing I do not think I can continue in the job.”

Since becoming commissioner, Blair has been enmired in one controversy after another, and became known as the “PC PC” among his critics – in 2002, as deputy commissioner of the Met, he had called for more female, ethnic-minority and gay recruits. In 2005, the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes (pictured), the Brazilian man shot by police at Stockwell Tube station, caused much public outrage and heated calls for his resignation.

Today, Brian Paddick, the former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner (and at one time Britain’s most high-ranking out gay police officer), said it was a sad day for policing. A little odd, perhaps, given that, in 2006, he threatened to sue the Met after they denied his claims that Blair’s office knew that de Menezes was the wrong man just six hours after the shooting.

At the time, Paddick was reported to be furious at being made the fall guy and hung out to dry by the Met following the testimony he gave on Blair to the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission). Paddick said then that it sounded as if his colleagues were accusing him of lying.

Aisha: the on/off story continues

Here we go again. Muslims are dictating what we shall and shall not read.

It’s that book about Aisha again – the little tot that their marauding prophet took as his wife. The book, by Sherry Jones, is called The Jewel of Medina, which we’ve blogged about before (see all posts here).

The publisher whose home was firebombed by suspected Muslim extremists has now put the British publication of the book on hold, the Daily Mail tells us today.

The paper says:

Martin Rynja of Gibson Square books intended to publish The Jewel Of Medina by US writer Sherry Jones.

But following the attack on his London home, his plans are now said to be "in suspended animation".

Alan Jessop of Compass, the publisher's sales representative, said: "He [Rynja] is in good spirits, but has put publication in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is."

Free speech kicked in the cojones once more, eh? And in the name of some Dark Ages religion, too.

It’s not often I quote myself (in fact, I don't think I've done it before!), but it’s worth repeating what I said on a post back in August on this subject of how religion is able to dictate our freedoms of expression and speech:

What we have allowed into our world now is something very dark, very sinister, something that will, if we're not very careful, soon have us culturally hogtied, appealing – before we dare to publish a word – to some bloody fatwa committee of bearded, grizzled old men who wouldn't know a good piece of fiction if they ever reached far enough into the real world to take it down off the shelf.

How do you tell your Catholic dad you're gay?

Not a million miles in subject matter from our post yesterday about the lovely actor Miriam Margolyes comes a plea for help from someone who himself is in a dilemma over whether to come out to a parent.

In this lad’s case, though, it’s not a question of whether it will upset the parent – a father in this case – but how he might react towards the son. The father is from a traditional Catholic background and thinks gay people are perverts, and the 21-year-old who has written to a Scottish agony aunt in the Daily Record is understandably worried.

What exacerbates this young man’s problem is that he’s just lost his mother, and as well as missing her he’s also cut up about the fact that he had just about worked out how he was going to tell her about his sexuality, but didn’t get the chance.

“Everything was made much worse by my dad saying he didn't care mum had died,” the young man tells agony aunt Joan Burnie. “They got divorced when I was in high school.” He goes on:

I feel I need to tell my dad I'm gay. But he comes from a very traditional Irish Catholic background and thinks all gay people are more or less perverts.

How do you change a man like that and how do I tell him about me? I'm taller, broader and fitter than him but I don't want to threaten him into accepting me for who I am so what do I do?

The response from Burnie is a measured one. And she does make a convincing case for not telling the dad – just yet. The lad needs to deal with his grief first.

So this is one case when it’s not quite time to do it, not because she thinks he shouldn’t, “but because right now you're emotionally very raw and still mourning the loss of your mum. You need to deal with the grief first and your sexuality second. You've still got a lot of other issues to sort out such as the effect your parents' divorce had on you.”

But what any young readers of this blog might find useful if they’re living in Scotland is what looks like a super support group aimed mainly, but not exclusively, at young men who have emotional problems of one sort or another and just need to talk and get support. It’s called Breathing Space, and Burnie suggests our gay friend ensure he has the support of this and the gay and lesbian helpline. Then think about finding a place of his own.

Then might be the time to approach Dad.

As for your dad, there's no point in denying some people are homophobic. He might accept it as many parents do but then again he might not.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't tell him. I just think you have to pick your moment as well as making sure you've got support in place if it all goes wrong.

Sounds like good advice to me.

365¼

Question:

How long does it take the earth to travel around the sun?

Answer:

Approximately, 365 and a quarter days.

Or, to be more precise:

365.2422

Of course, for three out of every four years, we live through 365 days a year, and 366 in the fourth – this leap year enabling us to “catch up”.

As a kid, thinking of all the birthday presents I’d go without (I was a materialist heathen from an early age!), I felt lucky not to have been born on 29 February – the extra day in a leap year – whereas, today, what I wouldn’t give to be only one year older every four years! How ridiculous, eh?

Talking of the ridiculous, did you know that there are 365 negative commandments in the Jewish faith? Or that, in Gnosticism, in Greek notation, the letters of the deity Abraxas make up the number 365? Or that, 365 signifies the levels of heaven? No, me neither.

A Canadian friend once told me that a provisional driving licence there was known as a “365” because it was valid for 365 days, which doesn’t seem ridiculous at all.

Google “365 and a quarter turns” (not days, but, hey, what’s in a word?) and you’ll find this reference at Feast of Fools to a sexual act between Clay Aiken (pictured) – the US singer, and 2007 American Idol finalist – and a former Green Beret turned real-estate agent, John Paulus! I won’t go into the details here but, suffice to say, at the time, Aiken denied he was gay though, interestingly, he didn’t sue because, as the lovely boys at Feast of Fools revealed:

[Paulus] had accidentally pulled a “Lewinsky” and had DNA evidence of his love affair with Mr. Aiken.

Nice!

In September, however – and better late than never – on the cover of People magazine, Aiken finally came out as gay.

Well, Daniel and I are off to try out some 365 quarter turning. It is a leap year, after all!