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Editorial
No Vat
British taxpayers woke up
on 1 January to a New Year present
from their New Labour government
a massive
tax increase in the shape of a whopping 2.5%
rise in VAT.
Of course, in fairness to
the government, this followed a temporary
reduction last year, allegedly to help the
economy, and now the party was over. Back to
reality. Great Britain PLC is in a
financial mess and can no longer afford
such indulgent largesse.
Tough decisions
needed to be made if Britain were to get back on its financial feet.
Ones mind can only
boggle, then, at the toughness of the
governments decision to pledge an estimated
£20 million of hard-pressed public resources
to a state-sponsored jamboree for Catholics
by inviting the Pope over for a state visit
later this year. Of course, the real cost is
going to be much higher and the government
has indicated its preparedness to sign a
blank cheque. Probably quite a big one, as
the 2008 Australian papal visit cost nearly
six times the £20 million estimate for
Britain.
I wonder why the word
hypocrisy comes into my head?
It might just about be
possible to stomach such public-spending
caprice if the Pope were a force for
national unity, be it political or social.
But, of course, he is quite the opposite.
New
Labour
The Pope has recently
single-handedly scuppered the Equality Bill that would have given protection
to those gay people unfortunate enough
to be employed, or seek to be employed, by
religious organisations. I have often
wondered about the Orwellian connotation of
the
New in
New Labour
under their administration, everyone is to be equal, but some will be more
equal than others.
Not content with this,
His Hatefulness now wants to ensure that
pupils of
faith schools are kept in the
dark about essential sexual-health
information, which doesn't accord with the
strictures of the fantasy world that is
organised religion. And this is exactly what
will happen if the pernicious amendment to
the
Children, Schools and Families Bill now going through Parliament is
not scraped.
I seem to remember that
Geert Wilders, a democratically elected
European politician, was denied entry to
Britain because he was said, rightly or
wrongly, by the government to be socially
divisive.
Again, why does the word hypocrisy
come to mind?
Suicide
But, as
Andy
Armitage reports in our keynote
feature,
No Vat,
there are many who oppose the official visit
of a
man
who has shielded child-abusing priests, been
responsible for countless deaths in Africa
and elsewhere of people who could have been
saved from disease and pregnancy through the use of condoms, and created a living
hell on earth for gay people, many of whom
end up as suicide statistics.
Many gay people who end
up taking their own lives are young
often
very young
and homophobic bullying at school is
a significant factor in many of these
tragedies. In our
Airings feature,
Stephen Blake exposes how
homophobic
bullying is rife in Britains schools, affecting
gay and straight children alike. He reports
on FIT, a new film by Rikki
Beadle-Blair that aims to tackle
homophobic bullying head-on.
There can be little doubt
that the homophobic school bullies take
their cues from the adult world around them.
Thats why adults, especially those in
prominent public positions, be they
celebrities or politicians, have a duty to
set a good example to children. What sort of
example, then, is the government setting to
young people by inviting the Pope, the arch
homophobic bully himself, on an all-expenses
paid holiday by the taxpayer while paying
lip service to tackling school bullying?
Its the
h word again.
Perhaps politicians should take the Hypocritic
Oath before they are let out on
their own?
Young freethinkers
It is a significant shame
that children and young people have so
little opportunity to have their voices heard,
and are, thereby, under-represented in
all debates
even ones that affect them
directly! Sadly, this is also the case within the mainstream freethought movement.
In our
Blogwatch
feature,
Michael Campbell explains how
submitting work to the big names in the
rationalist press can be daunting for young freethinkers
like himself, which is why he set up
Young Freethought. This new blog has created a lot of
interest and has received a message of
support from Richard Dawkins.
That religion is
essentially coercive, judgemental and
self-serving is hardly news, I suspect, to
most readers of G&LH, but is it
necessarily so? I have always taken the
view that I have no problem with what someone chooses to believe in so long as
they dont expect special privileges because
of it, or coerce or harm others with it. In
a very personal story of his early
experience of religious abuse as a
child, in his article
Religion abuse,
Neil
Richardson expounds a similar
view.
Richardson believes that
abusive religion follows on naturally from
false claims to understand the mind of God,
to the exclusion of other interpretations,
and the desperate need to build a membership
of following that will shelter and sustain
their own interpretation and maintain a
purity of doctrine. This description applies
perfectly to the Catholic Church and its
infallible Pope, as well as the happy-clappy
evangelicals.
Gay Jesus
Groucho Marx famously
said he would
refuse to join any club that would have him
as a member. Although he didnt say whether
he would join one that didnt
want him, which is exactly what gay Christians
seem intent on doing! Many of them reconcile
the irreconcilable by dint of denial: they
pretend that the Church isnt really
homophobic at all. Others, such as Elton
John, who has claimed recently that Jesus
was gay, resort to plain delusion. As
George Broadhead reveals in his
article,
Right to lie, there simply is no
evidence that Jesus was gay or even
gay-friendly, but plenty of evidence to the
contrary.
Somewhere else where gay
people are not particularly welcome is
sport. Particularly the brutal macho-man
varieties such as rugby. How ironic that the
ancient Athenian games, the forerunner of
modern sport and athletics, were essentially
a homosexual celebration of maleness
all women were excluded from the
precinct of Olympia on pain of
death!
Its hardly much of a
surprise, really, that this all had to change
following Emperor Theodosiuss statute of 390,
which punished gay male sex with death. He
followed this act
of barbarism a year later by ordering Bishop Theophilus to destroy the
Great Library of Alexandria. The
greatest storehouse of knowledge and
scholarship in the world, its destruction
marked the beginning of the Roman Churchs
Dark Ages, the greatest intellectual and
cultural catastrophe to befall humankind,
from which the world has not yet recovered.
Pinks and blues
For sure, sport has
certainly not yet emerged from the Dark Ages,
and homophobia is rife in all sport today.
So, it takes a brave sportsman or -woman to
come out and challenge this anti-gay
orthodoxy. Such a man is Gareth Thomas:
the most capped Welsh rugby player of all
time,
currently playing for Cardiff Blues, has
come out as gay. In his feature,
Out in
touch,
Andy
Armitage tells the full story, of
how Thomas has become the patron of UK LGBT
History Month and his hope that being
visible as an openly gay man will help
younger players.
Things looked to be
improving in the world of soccer, too, with
a
much anticipated anti-homophobia film, which was due to be
launched by the Football
Association (FA) at Wembley Stadium on
Thursday, 11 February. Unfortunately, the
film was not shown. In
FAgs,
Peter
Tachell tells
of the consternation caused by this
postponement among
both football and gay
groups, and the controversy over claims that the film
itself is actually homophobic.
While on the subject of male bastions, even
if you are a bio-male (or not!), are you a
real man? Are you even sure what
being a
man actually means? The more you try to
answer this question, the more confusing it
all becomes. But worry not
theres a new
magazine called
Spunk!
Spunk is troubled that so few bio men in
our communities are openly questioning, (re)interpreting
or disrupting their own and others
privileged positions and practices. We are
inheritors of a range of traditions; from
sissy-boys and radical effeminacy, to
straight-acting, gay hyper-masculinity,
butch and dominant straight-male gender
roles. Spunk wants to question how we
relate to our masculinities. Read more in
Spunk.
Paul Cadmus
Male nudes were a
favourite subject of the artist Paul Cadmus,
who died ten years ago. Cadmus is featured in our
Out of print article
by
Warren Allen Smith,
which first appeared in
G&LH, Spring 2000. Smith
tells us of Cadmuss life and work and
of how the two of them became friends.
Woodland burial is a
subject G&LH has touched on in the
past. As green awareness and more
enlightened religion-free spirituality
grows, it is becoming a far more popular
funeral option. Regular contributor
Neil Richardson
attended the opening of the Chiltern
Woodland Burial Park, situated at Potkiln
Lane, Jordans, in Buckinghamshire. In
Dead
wood,
he presents
some beautiful photographs of the facility
and tells how the parks policy is one of
respect for people of all origins, cultures,
faiths and beliefs.
The plight of gay people
in Iran is well known, where many live in fear
of homophobic attacks and even death.
Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR)
works tirelessly to find asylum in the West for gay Iranian
refugees. In
Railroads
journey,
Arsham
Parsi, IRQRs
executive director,
tells of the organisations work,
its desperate need for funding
and how people can become an IRQR supporter for less that the cost of a
cup of coffee.
Pole polishing
Meanwhile, you can catch up on
whats been happening in the news in our
regular News Watch, World Watch and On
the blog columns.
Finally, even
Steven Dean has been driven up
the pole by news of the pontiffs visit to
Britain. Find out why hes no lover of
Polish Catholics but has had more
kiełbasa than a delicatessen!
If you missed any of our
previous online editions, you can see them
all in our
Archive.
As always, we
hope youll feel the urge to write to us if
you have something to say. Please see our
Contact page for details of how to get
in touch. We would be particularly
interested to hear from you if you have an
article or letter you would like published.
Whatever you have to say,
wed love to hear from you.
Mike Foxwell
Editor |
